Succumb
by laughXoutXloud
Summary: Troy loves Gabriella. His heart aches everyday when he sees her; when she laughs, he merely melts. When Gabriella's father dies, Troy is more than there for her. And then...Gabriella realizes that Troy loves her. And that she loves him, too. TxG.
1. I'd Rather Be Dead If I Can't Have You

****

A/N: This story is extremely grave and mature. It's heavy-duty; definitely a lot to take, so if you think you can't handle stories that deal with suicide, I am warning you now that this one does.

This was originally a oneshot, than a twoshot, but now I think it's gonna be more.

**This is different than what I've done before, but I wanted to give it a try. This idea was one of those random ones that just pops into your head at an unexpected, irrelevant time. It wasn't one of those burning, itching, omg-I-have-to-write-this-down-now-or-else ideas. Just kind of something I thought of and then a few days later was bored so I started. That doesn't mean I didn't try as hard on it as I would on something else; but I just thought it was interesting how I could still get a (possibly?) satisfactory product from a spark that maybe wasn't so bright. ****I've been working on this for a quite a while; it's been sitting in my documents for a really long time, so now it deserves its time to shine. (That rhymed, hehe.) I've honestly been working really hard on this. There were points in the plot that I just didn't know in which direction to go; I spent like a week thinking and analyzing over all the different paths to go with this. So I hope all this work pays off and y'all enjoy it!**

**Anyway, thank you for the support and my loyal readers. :D **

**This is dedicated to runninequalslife. Hun, you are the best, most loyal insightful awesome beta an author could ask for. We are an amazing team and I cherish our friendship so dearly. I know how much you love this story, and so this is for you. :D Your enthusiasm for this story was really my motivation to write this; trust me, knowing myself, if it weren't for you, half of this first chapter would still be sulking in my documents folder. Love you! **

**I don't really care for the Jonas Brothers much, but the part that I'm quoting just fitted in so perfectly with the plot that I just couldn't miss the oppurtunity. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Disney or High School Musical, or anything affiliated with either one. **

* * *

_Don't want to fall asleep_

_Who knows if I'll get up?_

_I don't want to cause a scene_

_But I'm dying without your love_

_Begging to hear your voice_

_Tell me you love me too_

_And I'd rather just be alone_

_If I know that I can't have you. _

~Jonas Brothers, "Can't Have You"

* * *

"Maybe I should just spear this knife through the pulse in my neck…or just incise my chest near my heart…" She musedcontemplatively, the spotless, silver blade of the knife gleaming malevolently in her clenched hand.

Roughly, she ripped her long black dress over head, the silky material rippling through her thin fingers before she carelessly flung it aside. The air yanked it back and suspended it momentarily in the atmosphere; the expensive, sleek dress gracefully floated like a parachute, settling onto the small patch of lavender-colored rug beside her bed.

Troy found his mouth completely arid, as parched as the desert, the dryness of his throat the principle barrier that held him from objecting. He swallowed forcibly in pathetic place of speaking, staring fixedly at her gorgeous, nearly naked form as she gripped the weapon more firmly in her tiny, pale hand. She apprehensively knelt down to her floor, quite unsuccessfully covert over the fact that she was petrified out of her mind at what she aspired to do, not even conscious that she was clad in only her underwear. Her heart was thumping deliriously inside her chest, her whole body restlessly vibrating in uncontrollable reluctance and nervousness. She was scared; so hopelessly afraid, but she was coward to admit in to herself. Her mind was reeling with irrelevant thoughts at an unprecedented rate—just random rambles racing violently through her mind because of her extreme, unshakable tension.

There was a profound, concentrated silence that neither teenager dared to rupture. The environment of the small, flowery vicinity—which all of a sudden seemed claustrophobic and so dreadfully grim—was unbearably thick with fierce pressure, and the brick wall between the two neighbors elevated, widened, and strengthened more than ever. They mutually felt at sudden unease in each other's looming presence, and were suddenly relieved that their positions were a good five and a half feet away from each other.

Gabriella gazed down unemotionally at the knife in her lifeless hand, her dulled eyes unyielding and her intent mind completely immersed in her consuming thoughts. Questions blared through her mind ceaselessly like vociferous sirens, one important inquiry wrestling another for her undivided attention and answer. Troy merely watched her—he watched how her enormous, swirling eyes delicately flickered when she blinked; how her almost wholly exposed chest slowly moved up and down with every breath she inhaled; how ungodly breathtaking she looked when she thought so closely. How she seemed to have this unique, exuberant glow about her, even when she was as despondent as she was then. He thought how there were so many things she did not know—how internally and externally beautiful she was; how he was so utterly enamored with her; how it was his tacit duty to rescue her from her mistaken, self-decided fate.

Troy's distraught cyan eyes lingered despairingly on her morose form, crouched weakly on the floor beneath him. He finally mustered up all the courage and strength he could unearth, bravely declaring, "You're going to regret this."

Gabriella felt wildly restless now. Her undersized bones felt solidly stiff inside her body yet they urged to move, jittery and knocking ruthlessly against her skin. She knew if she did not think about it and simply did it, everything would go right. She had known beforehand that if she had been hesitant and thought before doing, her intricately fabricated plan would collapse. _Fuck_, she cursed heatedly in her head. She had done everything she had intended not to.

"I can't regret something once I'm already dead," Gabriella whispered solemnly, in such a illuminated way that Troy's hopes rocketed to the sky, praying that she had privately admitted her irrationality. But her spirits suddenly plummeted once more, Troy realizing that she had spoken in an epiphany sort of way. She seemed to suddenly discover a reason all the more to gruesomely commit suicide. As if once she were dead, she could not regret anything she had ever done.

"You need to—" Troy stammered tryingly, but sighed resignedly as he trailed off. He meant to teasingly reply with how she needed to come up with a response more original, but he knew now was not a fit time for their usual lighthearted joking and mockery. It was so just so instinctive to joke around like they usually did, like brother and sister. "—see the light," he finished faintly with a mumble some awkward seconds later. "You can't—you can't do this."

"I can. People have done it before." Gabriella knew playing smart-ass was not going to lift her out of the hole she had frantically dug. Her frail fingers powerlessly squeezed the handle of the knife still clutched tightly in her hand.

Troy remained quiet. For some godforsaken reason, he kept his mouth clamped securely shut. Gabriella kept hers sealed too, the ghosted manner about her—which was so unlike her—intensifying to the point where she hardly recognized herself. That frightened her even more.

The consistently increasing strain multiplied with each second that ticked by, the ongoing silence not an aid.

Gabriella abruptly stood, striding over to her closet in surprisingly bold paces and impatiently jimmying open the door. Her mocha eyes skimmed her options for a moment, and then she fished out a pastel tank top and a pair of tight-fitted jeans, pulling them on easily.

"What?" Troy asked numbly, his feet hopelessly anchored to the ground.

Gabriella remained mute, stingily snatching the knife on the floor once more and advancing to her neatly made bed. She plopped down on it nonchalantly, grasping the knife firmly in her hand and carefully steadying it over her left wrist, the bright blue veins in her arm popping out, effortlessly visible.

"Oh God, no…" Troy maundered hazily without even realizing he was speaking, haphazardly trampling over to the bed as quickly as he could and trying to seize the knife from her hand. She held it away from his reach, glaring up at him deviously. Her exotic chocolate eyes smoked over completely, unreadable.

"You can't choose for me, Troy Bolton," Gabriella grinned in a hauntingly vicious way, not knowing how truly cruel she was being to him. Troy felt his stomach plunge, his throbbing heart cracking and sinking, his face avalanching and flashing white. Gabriella smirked evilly, continuing tauntingly, "It's my life. My ending. I get to choose my ending."

Troy had never felt so desperate in his life. His chest ached agonizingly with longing and heavy hope, his throat dryer than he thought was possible. He aggressively thrust his arm over her for the outrageously unsafe, razor-sharp blade, but Gabriella had it too far away. He knew toying with pointed objects was never safe, but he could not decide what the most dangerous situation was in the room at that instant. Him getting sliced with a knife, or Gabriella slicing herself with the knife and dying.

"Give it to me," he growled callously in a thundering voice. The unexpected change of authority and force in Troy greatly startled Gabriella. His attractive face molded into a harder, more confident one, his serious cobalt eyes drilling holes into Gabriella's crumpled form. "You give me that knife. _Now_."

Something about his rapid metamorphism made Gabriella instinctively mount to complete composure, struggling for ultimate command all of a sudden. She loathed being the inferior one; control was unfailingly comforting.

"Who are you to tell me that?" Gabriella whispered sturdily with an abrupt, deceiving alteration of emotion, yet a hint of fear still ringing in her pure voice. She could not put up the act for long. Her hands shook dangerously for a tense, chewed moment, her mysteriously ambiguous eyes glancing down vacantly at her pale left arm. Her right arm rose, bringing the knife up with it, levitating it in the preferred spot.

She had insensately sliced her flesh before he could strangle out another pitiful word.

* * *

_Gabriella stared down with unreserved repulsion into the grubby ceramic toilet, filthy with years worth of grime, her knobby knees knocking nervously against the dusty, atrociously tiled floors of the first floor girl's lavatory. _

_"You know he doesn't love you." _

_Uncontrollable anxiety rocketing madly through her veins, she numbly dug her chin into the cold, glassy surface of the rim of the toilet, her eyes dilating in unconditional fear. _

_"You know it's true. You know he's secretly hated you. He's just been trying to keep it to himself; you know, mislead you; laugh at how you actually believe his little act. And he's been doing this since you moved here that _horrible, horrible _year…" _

_Sharpay wore a heartlessly wicked expression, one that made anyone fall weak at the knees. Her dark eyebrows narrowed, reeking total malevolence. Her utter disgust for Gabriella was such a strong force that a spiteful atmosphere automatically ensued any time they were in the same room together. _

_"Do you need me to remind you what happened?" Gabriella waited for the cackle that she was convinced would ensure. She somehow uncovered the consciousness to dizzily shake her head no._

_"Good. It even hurts _me _to retell the tale…" _

_Sharpay was pacing now in a tight diameter of six or so feet, her brightly manicured hands stiff and set on her curved hips. _

_"Do us all a favor. Succumb," Sharpay spat, her advice easily able to be mistaken for an order. "You'll see how much happier the world will be without a waste of space like you." She took an intimidatingly confident step forward into the stall in which Gabriella fearfully crouched, her shadow immediately dimming the cramped space and intoxicating it with her evil. "Stop with the pathetic fight, Gabriella Elena Montez. It's over. It's been over since that year. That year that you are dying to forget. Succumb and it will be over. Succumb and you won't have to try anymore. You won't have to be frantically clawing at empty air while you plummet to the bottom, like you are now. You will make this world a better place by leaving it. So please. It's easy." _

_Her fogged eyes balled into beady ones with the last firm, terse word. _

_"_Succumb."

_According to the _American Heritage Dictionary_, the word "succumb" had a straightforward, concise meaning._

_To die._

* * *

"Are they gone yet?"

Her dreary, desiccated words were painfully succinct and hung sullenly, inanimately,in the unusually impenetrable spring air. The bitter syllables drifted somberly to his ears like wispy, forgotten vapors, her typical crushingly energetic effervescency lacking tremendously to the point where it made his soul crumble at the comparison of the two very opposite Gabriellas. Gabriella was beginning to detect his escalating pain, hint by clue, but was too consumed by her own ashamed, stabbing hurting to notice anything more. Every single word she forced out of her mouth; every broken word was another needle, pricking, poking through her. She was just barely able to suppress the threatening, sensitive tears in her quivering voice. Gabriella Montez could not remember the last time she had cried. She could not remember a single time in her life when she had been so emotionally vulnerable. She hardly obtained the heart left to be embarrassed.

"No," Troy responded candidly, his masculine voice unintentionally dark.

She swallowed. Her throat felt sore.

She blinked.

Once.

Twice.

She stared up hollowly at the ceiling, her troubled mind completely blank and frozen, her body unconsciously sucking in a craved lungful of oxygen.

What her life had become.

It killed her.

She would not cry. She would not scream. She would not complain. She would not shatter.

She merely kept her impassive, unfilled eyes glued to the ceiling, motionless and stubborn.

She felt empty. Cracked.

Broken.

She would not cry.

Gabriella lay rigidly flat on her back, her tiny arms spread openly to her sides, looking completely dead, for they merely laid there. Her left forearm was tightly and carefully wrapped with a now incarnadined towel, most of the vivid red blood still wet but some other parts beginning to dry. It had taken a modest amount of time for Troy to register what she had been doing—it was so surreal for him that she would actually proceed with her foolishly unreasonable fantasy. But when the horrific information settled into his brain, he reacted rapidly, and had violently slapped her ashen hand to the side before she could slit her wrist, causing Gabriella to create a deep, dangerous gash near her elbow on her forearm. Troy had frenziedly raced around the room, deliriously dodging around like a maniac while Gabriella had withdrawn guiltily on her bed, cradling the injured arm in her other, her discolored face buried in her own shoulder; awkwardly silent. She had mutely observed Troy snatch a white towel from her adjoined bathroom, scurrying back to her and meticulously attending to her wounded arm, Gabriella robotically doing what he had asked; not objecting. She didn't have the energy to.

Troy allowed her to be silent for a while. He sat plainly at her desk chair from across the room, gazing absorbedly at her, entranced. He wondered how such a person could have so much torment in their lives. He considered what the system was; who and how it was decided who received what pain and what happiness. It made his head pound in frustration just to think about it. But he knew—he knew that if given the choice, he would have taken all Gabriella's hurt and pile it right on him. He would make this devoted decision in a nanosecond.

"Troy?" Gabriella managed to call softly from her unmoving position on her bed; in such a gentle, powerless manner that Troy swore he felt tears rise in his eyes at her immeasurable ache. Her feathery voice was increasingly fragile, and as light and transparent as the invisible girl that secretly cowered within her.

"Yeah?" Troy responded breathily, his heart hammering madly in his chest with every word. His hands were embarrassingly clammy. Gabriella was staring attentively at him from across the room, her mocha eyes intent and focused on his form. She didn't know why; but she suddenly found him breathtakingly beautiful. Was it just the light? She wasn't so certain. It was just some aura unexplainable about her neighbor that she just wanted to drink in all at once; it seemed so rich, so inviting, so comforting, and she wanted his presence suddenly. The abrupt revolution of belief startled her, but she could not help but desire his company. Her chest moved up and down with every desperate gasp of air she gulped, the fingers of her unharmed arm weakly curling in absentmindedness. Troy tentatively stood and paced over to her heartbreakingly limp figure, quietly sitting down at the edge of her bed.

Her fingers suggestively coiled again.

Troy understood what she sought after, his heart still frantically thrashing. His hand twitched nervously, and then following his instincts, he affectionately enveloped her miniature, cold hand in his. His hefty hand seemed to swallow her tiny one whole, and he squeezed it soothingly, letting her know he was right there. His alluring, sapphire eyes were consolingly warm on hers, making her just want to fall into them. They were familiar, and she felt an urgent need for their pacification and relief.

It was all so horribly surreal.

How her father had died, in the cruel nightmare of a car accident, just sheer blocks away from her house.

How her burdened mother had hysterically wept, even through their dreadful, brutal divorce and their strict, long-lasting period of silent treatment and mutual excommunication.

How her unpredictable mother had decided to hold the funeral at her father's house because it held so many memories of him. Yet that hurt the most, striking her square in the heart. How it hurt her to step on the floor her father had once stepped.

How at the moment there were uncontainable hordes of people gathered in her father's backyard, a vast many not even having known the famous businessman that her motivated father had been. Some fallaciously tearful mourners were randomly scattered around the first floor of her massive house, insistently helping Gabriella's despondent, seemingly inconsolable family. Sobbing people had been hugging her emotionless structure left and right, draping themselves on her unbending shape with excruciating weight, as if they needed her more than she needed them.

Troy's face was one of the few faces that Gabriella had recognized through the crowded, bustling house. She felt the most comfortable around him; he didn't try to console her or confront her the way everyone else had. He simply let her be. He made her feel strangely alive, and she wanted to be near that unknowing influence of his.

"Are you okay?" Troy whispered in such a tender, adoring voice that her insides just melted. Troy found himself fascinated by her natural charm, his blue eyes glistening marvelously as they watched hers. He didn't know what made him do it, or where the urge came from; but suddenly his free hand was fondly stroking her flowing tendrils, now rather wilted but still oh so beautiful. Gabriella felt her eyes impulsively flurry closed. The unreal, spinning sensations he was provoking inside her made her feel so treasured. Like he wanted her. Like someone actually wanted her. His large hand cupped her unblemished cheek distractedly, not realizing what he was doing as he reveled in his fantasy-like reverie about her. He was about to retract his hand when Gabriella released a slight whimper, pleading to the playmaker to keep his magical hand where it was. An elated smile snuck onto his face as his fingers began to softly run down her angelic face, so flawless. It simply amazed him. He simply amazed her.

"Hmmm…" Gabriella found herself humming lightly as his wondrous hand began gently massaging her neck. Her enormous brown eyes blinked open and scintillated pleasurably, gleefully, as she offered an unsure smile at the engrossed boy now hovering carefully above her.

Their eyes searched each other's, desperately. His radiant eyes seemed to glow stunningly, just like hers did. There was something so tantalizing and thrilling about those eyes; something so unique and engulfing. Why did he feel like he was in another world when he gazed into them? Why did she suddenly feel so safe in the unspoken embrace of his own remarkable blue eyes?

Her small hand floated up to his craned neck, gently pulling his elegant face down closer to her level. He smiled willingly as he rubbed his nose against hers, not thinking and just doing. It just felt so blissfully good. So open and free and wonderful. Gabriella prayed she could stay in his heavenly world forever.

Everything was suddenly happening so fast; at a blinding, rapid momentum that scared the two of them, yet neither could find the pause button. So they continued on heedlessly, releasing all of their imprisoned passion and energy all at once—one minute her hands were running up and down his chest, the next his hand was delving up her tank top. Before Gabriella knew it, her lips were tasting the best taste they had ever tasted.

His glorious tongue darted in and out of her mouth; her silky lips surely the softest thing he had ever felt. They were warm and as smooth as velvet; coaxing and reassuring. Gabriella produced an unintentional moan, embarrassed at herself while Troy believed it was the sexiest thing he had ever heard in his life. Both ardent teenagers were panting heavily, all logical thoughts fleeing them and solely leaving them driven by hormones.

"I…want—you," Gabriella gasped out the first words she had said in the last hour. "Give me all of you."

"I—I-I…" Troy stammered dazedly as he peppered kisses down her sweaty neck. Gabriella's hands erratically rushed up and down his muscular arms, which were propped on either side of her and encased her in paradise. Both felt violently flustered, yet they pressed on recklessly. "I—okay…Gabriella…" Her whole first name rolled off of his tongue so effortlessly.

"Hmm…" Gabriella replied haggardly, her breathing irregular as Troy sucked on that spot near her ear. "Troy…okay…"

Her jeans were unbuttoned maladroitly, pushed down to her knees in haste. Her thin tank top was hurriedly whipped over her head and flung carelessly to the floor, his own blazer and button-down shirt strewn haphazardly with it.

"Your arm…y-your arm, is it okay?" Troy grunted as hoisted himself up and sat on her fidgety, toned legs, taking a quick moment to wrench off the remainder of her jeans that had twisted at her calves. Her smooth flesh was pasty with boiling sweat, her bronzed skin flushed and her forehead scorching, and yet it all only furthered his extreme arousal.

"I'll be fine," Gabriella breathed vaguely, her voice escaping her. Her wide eyes blazed exotically with a sort of fire, an essence that was new and riveting to Troy. They simmered as they watched him, so sexily raw that that was all Troy needed to begin plunging into her warmth—when he realized.

"Hey…hey, Gabi," he said abruptly as he let her toy with his leather belt. "Aren't you a virgin?"

Gabriella's face turned unexpectedly hard, though she tried hard not to show it. She sat up suddenly and began to busy herself by trying to remove Troy's stubborn belt. The only sound that echoed throughout the sad, humid room was the irritated rustling of the belt. "Does it matter?"

She finally got the belt free, tossing it aside carelessly. "I'm just…s-saying…" Troy huffed as her fingers began tracing patterns across his defined stomach muscles. "Don't you want to think about this first?"

"What is there to think about?" she demanded rigidly, her sharp words concrete. "I tried to die. I wanted to die, Troy." Her voice dropped to an undertone of a whisper, the hand on his stomach falling with it. "I want to die." Her mystical orbs dimmed instantaneously.

Troy steadied a hand flat against her burning back, pressing her tiny body to his, his irregular breaths beginning to even. "You know that I love you?" he murmured distantly, his suddenly transparent eyes staring impassively at the wall. "You know that?"

Gabriella couldn't help herself; she was surprised she had any tears left at all. They pooled helplessly in her big, lonely eyes. How could she trust him? "I want you to fuck me hard, Troy," Gabriella commanded vehemently. "I want to feel pain."

He would leave once he got what he wanted.

And then it would all be over.

She would succumb.

* * *

_Gabriella watched with disgust trembling in her eyes as Avery Kennedy practiced her new routine. _

_Avery had everything Gabriella wanted. And she didn't even have to try. It was as if the whole world was just handed to her, and she didn't even have to fight to keep power for herself. Everything was just…for her. No one second-guessed her; no one dared to insult her within a two-mile radius of her; no one interfered with her at all. Because Avery Kennedy was just…well, Avery Kennedy. She was rude, but people still obeyed her. You _had _to. _

_She instructed her own league—something completely separate from the Ice Queen's. It was as if there were two queens of the grade, not one, and each ruler had their own prominent group of loyal followers and clones. _

_Sharpay had the drama geeks._

_And Avery, well…she stereotypically had the cheerleaders. _

_In her entire lifetime, Avery Kennedy had only spoken to the invisible Gabriella Montez for a grand total of eleven seconds. _

_The first time was at the championship game party. She had arrived late, the bright sheen of her glossy hair the first thing Gabriella saw before quickly moving out of her way. Her golden hair was ruffled, and her excessive makeup was horribly smudged. She looked kind of drunk, although she wasn't. She impatiently asked Gabriella where the beverages were. She was not familiar with the Baylor residence, where the party was being held. "Where are the drinks?" she had demanded dizzily, not looking Gabriella in the eye. _

_A little under two seconds. _

_The second time was a week later. Gabriella and Troy were on the grass of his backyard, their things scattered all about the lush green. They were intently doing homework with one another, occasionally telling stories and muffling a giggle or two. Avery had furiously stomped out of the house, her eyes narrowed. She ordered Gabriella a moment of privacy with Troy, on "urgent matters." While their "brief moment of privacy" lasted an hour, her order had lasted much less._

_Three seconds. _

_The third time was two days after that. Gabriella was seated comfortably in the silent school library, nibbling the back of her pencil absentmindedly as she pondered her essay question. Suddenly Gabriella heard a defiant, peremptory, "_Move_." Apparently Gabriella had been occupying the seat next to the window with the best view._

_Not even one second._

_The fourth day was today. The day of Gabriella's father's funeral. Gabriella was quite surprised to see Avery there, exquisite in a stylish black dress a great deal prettier (and expensive) than hers. She tried her best to be consoling towards Gabriella. "If you need anything," Avery gently put her hand on Gabriella's wrist, making Gabriella jump slightly, "just let me know. I wish you and your family all the best." _

_Six seconds._

_And yet, Gabriella still hated her. _

_Maybe hate was too strong of a word—especially for someone who she'd only communicated with for eleven brief seconds—but there were just some things Gabriella would never forgive Avery Kennedy for._


	2. Do You?

****

A/N: This story is extremely grave and mature. It's heavy-duty; definitely a lot to take, so if you think you can't handle stories that deal with suicide, I am warning you now that this one does.

**Disclaimer: I do not own Disney or High School Musical, or anything affiliated with either one. **

* * *

He kept postponing it.

He knew why.

Because he loved her.

Their foreplay must have lasted hours, he estimated—hours upon hours of postponing on Troy's part.

Because he knew once he fucked her, it was over.

And he did not want it to be over.

Gabriella did not beg for him.

She waited patiently. She was waiting for someone to save her before she fell.

Because maybe there was still some hope in the world. Maybe—just maybe—it didn't have to end that way.

Or maybe not.

Everyone had left hours ago; the mourners, the extended family, and also Gabriella's mother, who had retreated back to her house. Who was probably too concentrated on her own anguish to recognize Gabriella's absence.

"My turn," Gabriella muttered saucily into his ear as she flipped their exhausted bodies over on the mattress, straddling his hips with a grin that symbolized dominance embossed to her face.

"What do you mean 'your turn'?" Troy grinned lightheartedly, eliciting a quiet dribble of a giggle from Gabriella.

"Shh, Wildcat." Gabriella pressed her index fingers to his lips, Troy only licking her finger and making her shiver.

"What time is it?"

Gabriella leaned her body down on his, her ass sticking up high in the air. "The clock says it's four o'clock…"

"Swell…" The basketball captain whispered before pecking chastely at her lips.

Gabriella could feel her core completely searing with impatience and arousal. She craved him, deep down—but she knew she couldn't ask for him. Her eyes instinctively wanted to droop, but she didn't let them. Her muscles felt strained, but she continued. She refused to lose grasp of this moment.

Troy began to calmly knead her shoulders in such a relaxing way that the beauty was sure she was just going to evaporate out of pleasure. He trailed kisses down her back and up around her shoulders. Down her collarbone, in between her plump breasts, and down to her level stomach, he made her feel beautiful. Even if she knew it was on purpose. Even if she knew she was playing right into his hand.

Troy couldn't help himself; she was just too goddamn gorgeous. So talented. So charismatic. So smart. So perfect.

He yearned for her.

He knew, somewhere inside him, that she was the missing piece of the puzzle.

And he knew that it was going to have to happen sometime. It was now or never. It would not be much longer until he really couldn't take it anymore.

"Lay down," he ordered gently.

Gabriella obeyed wordlessly, knowing exactly what was about to occur the second he leapt off the bed and snatched his wallet; fishing out a wrapped condom and the ointment he kept with it. He put it on silently, Gabriella watching with intensity. The room grew dense once more.

The most popular kid of East High was nervous. He didn't know why, but he was, and exasperated too. He inched his body over to Gabriella's, which was splayed flat on the bed, admiring her natural beauty soundlessly with his eyes before speaking again. "How do you want to do this?"

"Hard," Gabriella whispered defiantly with shadowed eyes. "Fuck me hard."

"Okay…um," Troy sighed, knowing that what they were about to do was wrong, but at the same time, he didn't want to disappoint her. "Well then, do you want me to go on top? Or do you want to? Do you want to do this lying down? Sort of sitting? Standing? A combination of something?" The way he rambled about the intimate action seemed to extract all the satisfaction and splendor of it.

Gabriella shot up to a sitting position. "How come you're the one stressing, not me?" Gabriella snapped inquisitively. He was destroying the mood.

He kissed her.

It was one of those unhurried, never-ending kisses that caused her interior to fill with an inexplicable type of contentment.

"Hmmm…" Gabriella found herself moaning into the kiss, her hand curving around his neck.

They kissed leisurely, romantically, beautifully in a sort of implicit rhythm for an handful of minutes—until the athletic champion beckoned her backside to touch the surface of the bed, their bodies collapsing together against the tangled jumble of sheets.

Their infatuation-smoked eyes locked for a strained moment.

"Troy…" Gabriella whispered out of the blue at the intensity that was erupting between them.

"Shh…" Troy muttered lovingly with another lazy kiss to her lips, rubbing her nose with his sweetly.

Their eyes did not stray from each other's as he sank himself into her inviting opening for that first, sacred time. Gabriella gasped at the sudden pain, nerves activating and disturbing her figure, her heart spazzing frenetically inside her. The thin line that was Troy's mouth crumpled into a formless scribble, his eyebrows narrowing in utmost concern.

"Go," Gabriella commanded callously just as Troy opened his mouth. "_Go_."

He did. Gabriella grasped his shoulders as he rocked rapidly against her, gaining speed with every stretched second. Gabriella could almost feel her tissue tearing, but she tried desperately not to show her quickly augmenting ache. She flinched out of immense uneasiness, bracing herself as he thrust roughly into her. She didn't realize what she was doing; her fingernails disappeared into the tanned flesh of his broad shoulders, her nails scraping absentmindedly at his backside.

The hurt felt good.

"Are you okay—"

"Go fucking _harder_, Bolton."

He did. At the sudden boost of pace, Gabriella's worn legs jerked up and wrapped reflexively around his waist, tightening with each vigorous propel into her.

"Gabriella…" Troy panted urgently in an alarmed voice, unsteadily wiping away the unstoppable tears that were dripping miserably down her fallen face. Gabriella hadn't even noticed that she was crying, hiccoughing once before promptly smushing her lips against Troy's, rather embarrassed, slowly tugging him closer to herself. His hands roamed teasingly in the area of her breasts, squeezing one lightly and making Gabriella squirm. He then ventured down to her beautiful stomach, as smooth and as flat as any model's. Time seemed to skid to halt for a moment as Troy neared his face closer to hers, his hot breath steaming her face and mind. His lips easily discovered her right ear, his mouth ghosting over the soft flesh and flicking her earlobe with his tongue. "Gabriella…Gabriella…Gabriella…Gabriella…" Troy chanted in the sexiest yet sweetest, most taunting yet compelling whisper in her ear. Her name suddenly sounded so beautiful when he said it.

"I…" Gabriella desperately began with difficulty. Short, raspy gasps emitted from her mouth, Troy knowing she was near her climax. He continued to drive into her, building up even more, not even thinking about how much his legs were aching. The shooting pain Gabriella had felt before had simmered quite a bit, but she still felt high quantities of discomfort, with the occasional sting of genuine pain here and there. Otherwise, the ecstasy she was headed towards and Troy seemed to be the only two things she could think clearly about. "I think I might be—I think I'm close—"

Troy merely caressed her face in the gentlest possible manner, gazing deep into her unfathomable, mesmerizing orbs, pecking an innocent kiss to her cheekbone, directly underneath her right eye. Gabriella felt her breathing hitch at the tender action, even more so as he began to fondle her breasts once more. Her pleasure climbed higher and higher—advancing, escalating, elevating higher until she thought she couldn't take it anymore. He tenderly intertwined their fingers, kissing each one of hers before bringing it down in between their sweaty bodies.

"There," he whispered into her ear again in a surprisingly shaky voice. He was breathless of her beauty, staring into her eyes as he pressed her trembling knuckles to her swelled clitoris. Gabriella nervously swallowed, her stomach springing up instinctively at the feeling of having her fingers touch one of her most intimate places. Troy enveloped her tiny hand in his, silently urging a hazed Gabriella to rub at the sensitive bundle of nerves in between her thighs. He kissed her before picking up his pace once more, Gabriella's slim legs tightening around Troy's waist. His mouth dried at the sight of her giving herself added pleasure, so unbelievably sexy to him that he just had to tell her. Gabriella's mouth curled into a smile at his confession, only continuing more.

"Now I'm really going to go," Gabriella convulsed between clenched teeth. She heaved her head back, her body unfeeling all of a sudden. At that same moment, she reached the apex, shuddering as she unreservedly exploded into a free and untamed, new kind of inexplicable euphoria. It was something so different but special—something so beautifully unique, separated from anything she'd ever felt before—and it was beyond wonderful; it made her beyond speechless, thunderstruck, astounded. Troy held the hot spot of her back, gazing intently at her as she peaked, cumming only seconds later. He buckled involuntarily on top of her, Gabriella quite squished underneath him, even though Troy made sure not to load his weight on her, especially her impaired arm. He kissed her cheek blithely, his irrepressible ardor converting into sugary sweetness, his lips lingering on her skin for an unconcerned, yawning minute. Their heavy breathing was slightly hushed but peacefully comforting to one another in the seemingly colorless room, which suddenly seemed to glow. With what, neither of them knew for certain.

Passion, Gabriella presumed.

He warily unraveled his clammy appendages from hers, sighing rather contentedly as he flopped back onto the mattress. He peeled the sodden condom off of himself, his weary azure eyes widening at the startling amount of blood on it. His head snapped up to meet Gabriella's, the once again morose goddess watching attentively the entire time as he did so. Their eyes connected to one another's, so naturally. Gabriella felt all oxygen vacuum from inside of her.

"Did it hurt?" Troy spoke lightly, his tone just scarcely above a whisper.

"Yeah," Gabriella matched his low volume. "It hurt like hell."

Troy bit his tongue as he briskly strolled over to the trashcan near her desk, nonchalantly chucking the drenched piece of latex into the garbage and wringing his hands. Gabriella chewed on her lip as she eyed his fully exposed form, so defined and handsome and gorgeous…

"Was it good though?" Troy posed evenly once he reclined on the bed in his previous spot. "I mean, you know, the first time is never good."

"Yeah, it wasn't good," Gabriella agreed coolly. She hauled the tousled covers up to her bellybutton, Troy adjusting under them and twisting the muddle of sheets up just a little higher.

Silence.

It was bizarre. But not a bad bizarre.

The silence was easy.

Gabriella kept to her side of the bed, Troy to his, both staring aimlessly up at the colorlessceiling.

"What was your first time like?" Gabriella pierced crisply. "Was it with Avery?" She grew nauseous just saying that name.

"Yeah," Troy coughed nervously. He felt more than uncomfortable verbalizing about his whiny, cheerleader girlfriend in front of the girl he truly loved. "Yeah, it was with Avery."

"When?" Gabriella interviewed softly. Her demeanor quickly mollified, her measureless brown eyes softening and her faultlessly-structured complexion melting some.

Troy sighed resignedly. "After the championship game." He paused, silently debating whether or not to supplement another unnecessary detail. His brain spluttered like an aged, rusty engine and quickly added, "In the locker room. After everyone left. Before the party." He regretted it instantly.

That was two months ago.

"Was it good?"

"It was fucking horrible." _Nothing will ever be better than this time with you, _Troy thought secretly to himself.

The way he said it, with such stressed disgust, made Gabriella giggle a bit, and he glanced over at her with a relaxed smile.

"Yeah, it was kind of funny," Troy grinned as he reminisced inside, bursts of the derisory experience beginning to spurt into his mind. He chuckled aloud; "I accidentally slammed her against the lockers too hard." He paused to chortle for a moment. "She got so mad at me…" Gabriella could effortlessly picture the typical scene. Domineering, arrogant Avery, with her pale, rosy gold hair, her angular jaw and stick-thin body, peremptorily smacking Troy in the face for accidentally running her into a wall rammed with lockers. _Oh, poor Troy… _Gabriella sniggered openly at this. "Feel sorry for me?"

"Yeah." Gabriella laughed louder as Troy continued. He wanted to make her laugh. He wanted to see her happy; laughing.

"And remember the time Courtney didn't show up to the game on time?" Troy rolled his eyes. "And how Avery erupted and starting hollering at her, at the top of her lungs, in front of everyone? Oh God, was I embarrassed to be her boyfriend then…"

Both teenagers laughed together at the memory, at ease with one another. Troy shifted on the bed, slithering his arms around her petite frame and hugging her warm body close. He kissed her hair.

"Do you like Avery?"

"Do _you_?"

Gabriella sighed. "I don't like Avery. What is there to like?" she asked sourly. She presented a bitter face which she was glad Troy couldn't see from behind her. "Today…this morning…she tried to act like she cared. About my dad and everything." Gabriella shook her head. "I don't think I can trust her sympathies."

"Why?" Troy asked, offended. He sighed, rubbing his hand over his greased face. "Gabriella, her father died last year, before you moved here. It was horrible—his dead body was found slumped against a tombstone in a graveyard, slashed everywhere and red with blood, countless bones in his body fractured." Gabriella felt queasy again.

"How come I had never heard that before?" Gabriella asked softly.

Troy shook his head sadly. "No one talks about it. Avery refuses to talk about it."

Silence.

"Why do you like her?" Gabriella added abruptly in a smaller, more timid voice.

Troy shrugged. "Avery's just…you know, Avery. She was my girlfriend before you moved here…and I just—" Troy broke off, his voice cracking. "Sorry," he whispered, burying his face into the hot of her neck. "I don't know why I'm with her. Maybe it's because I still feel sorry about her dad—maybe I just don't know…" His hand ran through her hair, still damp. Gabriella shuddered at the sensations he evoked deep inside her.

"Break up with her, please," Gabriella pleaded delicately, surprise her voice had remained even. She felt guilty to request such a thing. "I can't take anymore of it. Anymore of you and her, together."

"Me either," Troy whispered slowly against her ear. "I don't know why I'm still with her when there's you."

Silence.

Gabriella's eyes flitted downwards, down to where their hands were now interlaced. "Troy?" She asked hesitantly.

"Yeah?"

"Do you like me?"

"Very much."

"Then why doesn't everybody else? Why does no one like me? There must be something in me that you like, something that makes you hold on to me." Gabriella's voice was strained.

"There is more than something," he whispered softly. "There is everything in you." He tucked a stray ringlet behind her ear.

"Then wh-why?" she asked, her voice cracking feebly before she began to sob. She felt stupid; crying like this, so hard. But she just couldn't seem to contain herself, unable to stop. Troy flipped her over gently and she instinctively curled against his calming self, her tears drying against his smooth skin.

"They're blind, baby." It just rolled off of his tongue, so naturally. The term of endearment only soothed Gabriella more; it gave her a sense of safety. "They're all blind."

"I don't want them to be blind. I want them to see. I want them to see me and take me and understand me and like me." She wept hysterically against his chest, unable to breathe properly. Gabriella was slightly embarrassed that she was crying again. "They say I need to try harder…but how can one give if they haven't taken? If they haven't…g-gotten—anything?"

"I will give you," Troy whispered quietly as he reassuringly rubbed her back. "I will give you and then you can give, too." His heart broke further and further with every word she uttered. "Everyone wants to be loved in this world, but the truth is, not everyone can be. But I will let you be one of those lucky people. I will work as hard as I can to make you feel loved, until the day I die."

Gabriella only cried harder.

For she knew he was repeating lies. Or at least, she believed them to be lies. Her chest began to ache from crying so much, but she only continued. The pain felt good. It made her feel strangely alive. She had forgotten what it was like to feel; it had been so long since she had truly lived. She felt that indescribable numbness course through her core once again.

"I'm not living. I want to live."

"You're heart's beating. Then what are you?"

"Undead. There is more to living than just the beat of a heart, Bolton. Living is feeling. I want to feel."

Troy had nothing to say.

So he merely hugged her, pressed her as hard as possible to his chest, where she continued to bawl.

"Will you be here in the morning?" Gabriella's weedy whimper was muffled in his chest. His thumb smoothed out an invisible circle on her shoulder. He could feel those rosy lips wavering against his flesh, as if she were freezing from cold. When really, she was freezing from the coldness of her own malfunctioning heart. Her whole body seemed to vibrate, uncontrollably, out of her control. It frightened Troy.

The basketball champion did not speak for a tense moment, his index fingers drawing a line of fire up her back. "No," he finally sighed against her ashen cheek, pressing his lips distractedly against her closed eye. "I'll be gone when you wake up."

"Why?"

"What are we _doing_, Gabriella? What are we…_getting to_?" Troy spluttered, aggravated, running his hand through his hair in frustration. "I just cheated on my girlfriend. I just…I just—I don't know how I'm going to live with myself from this point on. Knowing I cheated. I vowed to myself never to cheat, never to betray a person, no matter how annoying they might be. Avery doesn't deserve this. She hasn't ever treated me this badly. Sure, she's not the most gentle, considerate person, but I know her. I know that she's conservative and has good morals and would never do this to me." He sighed resignedly, his muscular arms falling as if they weighed a hundred pounds each, his stiff grasp on Gabriella loosening tremendously. Her saintly face avalanched, her twig-like arms fearfully recoiling to her sides like his had. She felt even hollower now.

"Me too." Her lips felt as dry and rough as rugs as they grinded against one another. "I can't believe we just did that."

"But I wanted to. I'm kind of glad we did, because it was amazing; kind of upset we did…"

Gabriella closed her disheartened eyes as if it pained her, crossing her arms consciously over her exposed breasts. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, I just…God, it felt right at the time, but now it feels wrong…"

"Do you regret it?"

"Do you?"  
"_Stop that_!"

Troy was frighteningly silent, his cerulean eyes absent as he reflected privately. Gabriella observed him absorbedly as his eyes sifted until they went transparent, his gorgeous face still as stone. They were both sitting upright again, both of them just realizing it.

"What do you want?" Gabriella whispered softly, splitting the silence abruptly. After two apprehensive minutes, he still gave no response. "Do you want to be with me? Do you want to be with Avery? Do you want neither of us?"

"Do you still want to die?" Troy blurted lowly, his gruff voice louder than hers had been, intimidating her some extent. His heart thudded as he realized what he just said, his words tauntingly echoing through his mind. He saw her flinch at his icier tone, at his abrupt, stabbing exclaim.

"Yes," Gabriella whispered tentatively. "Because I don't want you if you don't know what you want. I can't wait for you anymore, Troy. I've waited too long already."

"You said you wanted love…I can give you love—"

"When? How?" Gabriella shot at him exasperatedly, gulping down oxygen. "You don't know what you want, Troy. I can't believe those words. I can't trust you like I did before."

The two stared fixedly at each other for beats of silence, contemplating wordlessly.

She didn't want to talk anymore.

He didn't want to talk anymore.

They communicated with their eyes. They mutually understood.

Gabriella mutely shuffled her nude body over towards his, wrapping her slender legs around his waist tightly, not bearing the thought of being apart from him. The feeling of her skin **brushing** against his made her tingle all over. He gently pushed her beautiful face into his chest, his fingers knotting in her brown tendrils. Gabriella exhaled calmly, blinking softly, nearly lulled to sleep by the peaceful rhythm his hand created as he rubbed her back.

The night sky was a bottomless velvet through the open window, inked a navy blue—a deep and painfully beautiful blue; an honest, blatant blue. It made her forget for a moment. It made him forget for a moment. Silvery stars appeared like precious diamonds, dotting the magnificent expanse of navy, twinkling innocently at them from above. Chilly breezes swept in through the unfastened window, frosting their damp skin. The room was murky, forlornly dark.

"I'm confused," Gabriella whispered unsteadily into his breast, blistering tears pricking her cheerless eyes.

"Me too, baby. Me too."

* * *

He was gone by the morning, like he had said.

Gabriella sat up groggily in her bed, flinging the covers off of her onto the floor with edge and intolerance.

It was not going to be a good day.

She groaned in complaint as she rose to a standing position, her injured arm raw with ache. In her adjoined bathroom, she redressed the wound, not bothering to be meticulous like she would have been. She just didn't care anymore.

She hazily slipped on her furry bathrobe, too lazy to dress properly, dragging herself back to her bed when she noticed something. A crinkled note, scribbled in pencil on lined notebook paper lay on her nightstand. She rapidly unfolded it, her mind impatient and scrambling to consume all the succinct information as soon as possible.

_Gabriella._

_I don't know what I want. I'm sorry. But I think you know what you want. _

_I'll be back by noon to retrieve your body. _

_Troy. _

Gabriella suddenly knew how she was going to die.


	3. I Hate Everything That You Are

****

A/N: This story is extremely grave and mature. It's heavy-duty; definitely a lot to take, so if you think you can't handle stories that deal with suicide, I am warning you now that this one does.

Thank you tons to the people that reviewed!

**Disclaimer: I do not own Disney or High School Musical, or anything affiliated with either one. I don't own the Doodlebops either. (Wait, isn't that something Disney?) **

* * *

He was there at noon on the dot.

For a split second, he thought maybe he could stop her.

Then he realized that she had probably been dead for hours now.

He had given her enough time, hadn't he?

He heedlessly stormed up the steps to her room, barging in through the front door so fast he nearly fell flat on his face.

He didn't see her in the room. He looked under the bed. Behind her vanity. Behind her desk. Under her desk. He checked the closet. Behind the racks. On the shelves. He checked the other closet. Same routine. He checked her bathroom. The cabinets. The bathroom closet. He impatiently yanked back the shower curtain, the screeching of the metal rings distant in his frenetic mind.

His stomach lurched.

The hefty, porcelain bathtub was filled to the very border with lukewarm, opaque water. He could vaguely distinguish a familiar crumpled figure at the floor of it.

His mind went wild. He grew dizzy again.

He didn't know what to do first; his mind was screaming at him to do one thing, then another, then another.

His hands recklessly dove into the fogged water, splashing it all about. He wrapped his arms around her frantically and carefully scooped her out of the tub, the liquid dripping all over the floor and his clothes. He collapsed against the tiled floor with her heavy in his arms, completely lightheaded. He could feel his face turn green.

"Gabriella," he yelled, his breathing labored. "GABRIELLA!" He grasped her by the arms and shook her as if that would make a difference. She responded like a rag doll would have.

She was unconscious.

CPR, CPR, CPR?!?! Why couldn't he fucking remember it?!

He pressed his lips to her neck, just under the elegant arc of her jaw; he could feel a faint throb. His lips covered her own lifeless ones, sucking and licking and blowing and puffing air into her, his mind projecting a blank slide. Sometime later, somehow—he didn't know how—he properly performed CPR, and somehow—he didn't know how—her pulse began to grow stronger. The indistinct, irregular beat increased in strength until she suddenly shook erratically in his arms, her bare back arching and violently coughing up excessive amounts of water all over Troy, herself, and the floor. She squeezed her eyes hard as if it pained her, her head aching terribly, and she tightly coiled up to Troy's body, hiding herself.

Troy did not even hesitate for a second. He gripped her firmly by the arms, clutching them forcefully, his nails digging into her soft skin. He shook her petite figure wildly again, standing abruptly and lifting her up roughly with him. He smacked her for the first time ever, and she did not rebel; it was not like he had expected her to anyway. She was clearly somewhere else, in another world, as he furiously thrashed her; her body remained remarkably stiff. At least she had some more control. At least her head wasn't disjointedly lolling around on her neck like it had been before. At least her skin wasn't so icy. At least she wasn't as heavy. At least she was making eye contact with him.

Troy froze for a moment. At the indescribable intensity, shock, pain. The list was endless.

She didn't say anything. She just stared fixedly at him, her deep brown eyes full of nothing.

Cold.

Troy swallowed gruffly, unclamping his hands from around her upper arms and promptly dropping her to the floor. She buckled into a fragile heap on the tiles, her face drawn; she glared at her waned hands, secretly frightened of what he would attempt next. His fingers had left evident imprints on her thin arms.

"I deserved that," Gabriella mumbled gravely under her breath, just barely audible.

Troy's palm connected with her cheek again, leaving a visible red mark that stung like hell. Gabriella responded by showing no obvious response. Troy grew a bit frustrated, slapping her again, harder. Gabriella's eyes fluttered close, her breathing hitching mechanically.

"You can stop me, you know," Troy grunted huskily. He whacked her again. "You can tell me to stop."

Gabriella shook her head halfheartedly, her big eyes glazing, biting down on the insides of her cheeks and trying so hard not to cry. Her chest felt like it was just going to explode.

"You can tell me it hurts," Troy huffed heatedly as he struck her once more.

_Don't cry…don't cry…don't cry…_ Gabriella chorused supportively to herself.

"You can ask me what the fuck I'm thinking," Troy growled angrily in between his teeth. He kicked her in the stomach.

Gabriella let out a guttural cry, out of nowhere, no longer able to contain herself.

Troy stood above her, panting hard, not really believing what he had just done.

There were tears pooled in her eyes, but they did not fall.

"I hate you," Troy spat callously. The words daggered through Gabriella's heart, and she sunk even further on the floor. "I hate you for making me like this and for scaring the shit of me like you did and for making my life so much more complicated than it has to be. I hate you for ruining everything I had and I hate you for moving here and just screw everything up and I hate you. I HATE YOU!" Troy thundered breathlessly. "I HATE EVERYTHING THAT YOU ARE!"

Silence.

Troy's rough hands distractedly balled into fists, fuming.

Gabriella felt lightheaded. Dizzy, just like Troy had just measly hours prior.

"I'm sorry, Troy," Gabriella croaked miserably, staring down directly at her lap. She felt Troy tentatively kneel down next to her, making her shiver slightly. Her bottom lip quavered dangerously. "I'm so s-sorry—I…I'm sorry I scared you, and I deserve everything you do to me. It's all my f-fault—"

She glanced up, relatively stunned to see genuine tears dripping down his dazzling features without apparent restraint, so wet and so open and so vulnerable. His magnificent eyes were brimmed with so many searing tears that she could hardly distinguish his irises; still, the clear beads slid down his soft skin, silently. Her tiny hand hovered above his beautiful face unsteadily, in a trance-like state, delicately pressing her index finger to a transparent tear and wiping it down his smooth cheek, to his perfectly sculpted chin. The dismal tears flowing freely down his flawless face did not seem real to Gabriella. She pressed another warm droplet to her forefinger and dissolved it with her thumb absentmindedly, her chest dense with apprehensive anticipation. His heart halted at the gentle action; everything stopped as he gazed at her.

"I hate you for making me want you," Troy murmured numbly. "I hate you for making me mad like this, over you."

"I don't hate you, Troy," Gabriella enunciated his name, savoring each wonderful syllable. Troy practically melted at the provoking silkiness she still managed to harbor in her voice, even through it all. "I don't think I was stupid…confused maybe, but not stupid. I understand what I wanted…and I wanted it so much, Troy, because I was so close then. I could feel it right at my fingertips…death—" Troy cringed, "—was right there. I knew what I wanted; fuck, I can _still_ feel it. It was so reachable, so easy…and at that point, I had nothing else to live for. You would have qualified as something to live for, but you didn't know what you wanted, and like I said: I couldn't wait for you. Death was just going to slither away…just like that…and I understood that that was the best thing for me. It was less painful to go that way and at that time than agonizing over you first. It didn't seem worth it." Gabriella stood up abruptly, her beautiful, solemn face molding. "And so if you still don't know what you seriously want and you can't commit, I will succumb a faster way." Troy knew she was visualizing the knife still lying hazardously around somewhere in her room.

He gaped. He did not know how he was supposed to answer.

"It's my fault, Gabriella," Troy sighed gravely. "I almost made it seem like it was okay towards the end to succumb like that…just because I didn't know what I wanted…"

Gabriella grew just the slightest impatient. "Do you know what you want now?" Gabriella demanded in a cracked voice.

"I, uh, cut it off with Avery," Troy clarified slowly. "This morning."

Gabriella gulped hesitantly. "What does this…mean?"

"I can have you."

"Do you want me?" Gabriella inquired.

"I already told you."

"Yes?"

"Yes."

Gabriella unleashed a large, sweeping sigh, surprising Troy as she eased one leg over the rim of the tub, then the other, seating herself comfortably in the vast, white basin. The misty warm water was soothing to her skin and to her cluttered mind. She closed her brown eyes and reclined back leisurely, inhaling unhurriedly and relishing the oxygen that filled her desperate lungs. She breathed out in such a relaxed manner that Troy thought she was meditating. She was, in fact, unintentionally. She just needed to calm herself before she erupted.

"I'll be in the next room," Troy mumbled vaguely, eyeing her tranquil, nude body suspiciously and resorting to the next room noiselessly. For a still hour, the two remained stationary in their separate quarters. Troy lay down on her bed and stared aimlessly out the window, fantasizing both innocent and inappropriatethings about Gabriella and worrying about their stressed relationship at the same time. Gabriella had floated off to a wonderful, dreamless slumber, forgetting she was in the water, and as a result, awoke to some messy splashing. Troy heard this and rapidly approached the bathroom, just in case.

"I'm fine," Gabriella sighed as she readjusted herself. She offered a halfhearted smile. "I…um…fell asleep accidentally." Her hungry eyes feasted on the sexy shape of which was her neighbor.

Troy sighed, kicking off his shoes. He threaded his fingers through his disheveled hair nervously, his heart hammering enthusiastically like it usually did when he was around her.

"Can I talk to you?" Troy requested quietly. He seemed like a totally different person, Gabriella observed. Now he was back to the breezy, collected and fair Troy she knew and preferred most.

"Sure." Gabriella encircled her willowy arms around the sides of the tub as if she were lounging in a luxury Jacuzzi. This action seemed to ease the atmosphere more.

Troy sat down on the shut toilet seat, leaning forward and smoothly clasping his hands together, his fingers reflexively weaving in together.

"We can make this simple, or we can make this complicated," Troy began thickly. "We can make this easy, or we can make this difficult. We can make this painful, or we can make this painless." He swallowed and stared straight into her deep, buttery brown eyes. "It's your choice."

Gabriella felt put on the spot.

"Wow," she blubbered clumsily. "Well, firstly…I think we needed—need that kind of straightforwardness," Troy nodded in agreement, "to you know, sort this out, um…" She nibbled the tip of her right index finger, all other speech trailing off to incoherency. Troy inclined his head as to better decipher her confused mumbling.

"Yes?"

"What?"

"I told you. How do you want to do this?"

Gabriella smirked deviously. "Fast and hard?"

"Not now, Gabriella," Troy scolded firmly. Gabriella felt her back grow rigid. He did not use her first full name often, and when he did, she knew better than to fool around. She was frightened of what he might unexpectedly lob at her like he had before.

"O-Okay, Captain," Gabriella whispered vulnerably. Without thinking, she cowered slightly against the white-tiled wall, as if trying to blend into it.

"Gabriella," Troy began seriously. "I'm going to ask again—"

"—Wait," Gabriella interjected in realization, her perfectly plucked eyebrows scrunching adorably. She bulleted up to a sitting position, no longer slouching leisurely. "Where did you break up with Avery? What did you tell Avery when you broke up with her? What did she say? _What exactly did you tell her_?" Gabriella demanded impatiently.

Troy gulped awkwardly, kneading his dried throat as he readied himself to speak. His spinning eyes would not meet her looming ones, which were glued to his structure. "I asked you first."

"Shut the fuck up, Bolton. My father just died." Gabriella's eyes engrossed as her sharp words settled in her brain. "Oh God…I mean…I'm sorry, I just—" Gabriella sighed resignedly and played with the splayed ends of her damp, matted hair. "I'll answer your question first. I want to do this as smoothly as possible, but as honestly as possible. In the easiest way while being smooth and honest."

"I broke up with Avery on her front porch…I called, said I was going over, and drove over. Then I just told her…just like that. I said, "I'm sorry Avery, but I've come to a decision that we should break up." And rather calmly, she tells me, "You're in love with Gabriella Montez, aren't you?" And I said, "Yes."" Gabriella met his gaze, her eyes glossing over; she didn't blink, unable to rip her orbs away from him. "And she doesn't say anything back to that. She invited me in."

"And then?" Gabriella choked out.

"And so I walked in. And we talked."

"About what?" she croaked feebly. Troy noticed the steady reddening of her eyes.

"I told her how much I loved you."

"You d-did?"

"I did." Troy confirmed with a slight nod of the head.

"Well…what did she say back?" Gabriella murmured, her heart pounding with anticipation.

"She said she always knew. She said she always saw that special, significant sparkle in my eye when you were around me. She told me she knew she had lost me the day you moved here."

"I'm…sorry, Troy," Gabriella whispered finally.

"For what?"

"I don't know," Gabriella shook her head slowly. "Everything. Avery. That summer."

"Last summer was not your fault, Gab—"

"—You're not the one who irresponsibly crashed their car into a wheelchaired kid, were you?" Gabriella fired back fiercely. Troy was taken aback, astonished at the fire that suddenly lashed within her. "Yes, Troy, it _was _my fault. It was my fault that I wore such dark sunglasses and that I was listening to the radio and so absorbed in it and that I just wasn't paying attention. It _was _my fault. Not only did I hurt another kid, but I got _myself _hurt. And I didn't die; _he _did. And he didn't do anything. It _was _my fault, Bolton. I was fucking lucky you were around to call 911."

"I was just doing what any person would do."

"It just wasn't fair for that kid, Troy. Caleb Dennison. I'll never forget that name. It just…wasn't fair." Troy was speechless. She sighed and began newly again. "I know I was being an ass before…but it was just so easy to die. _So _reachable, so possible. Nothing else seemed probable at the time." She stared fixedly at her hands, her eyes just so far away.

"And now?" Troy asked carefully.

"I'm not going to die, or kill myself—" Troy breathed out a sigh of relief, "but that doesn't mean I feel okay. Because I don't."

"What made you change your mind?"

Gabriella knew Troy was just trying to get the communication between them more honest, as truthful and open as possible.

"You, loving me." She sucked in a haggard breath. "Me, allowing myself to love you since you love me."

"Anything holding you back?"

"Possibilities of you, loving Avery still. Me, unable to love. Me, fucking up our relationship. Just screwing up in general." Gabriella ran her fingers through her hair shakily.

"There's no such thing as not screwing up," Troy whispered gently. "Everyone screws up."

Gabriella sighed.

"Why did you want to commit suicide?" Troy asked gently. His magnificent eyes were marvelously soft, so tender and considerate as they gazed into hers, which were still red. "I mean…what got you to that point? What got you to that point that you just didn't want to live anymore?"

"That summer had something to with it," Gabriella whispered gravely, unlocking their eyes and staring distantly at the tiled bathroom wall. "I was a _murderer_. I just could not believe it. I had _murdered _an innocent, handicapped boy who already had enough pain in his life. He only underwent more pain when I crashed into him. And just…just the whole blur of the accident makes me shiver now. I didn't think too much of it then. I actually thought his family wouldn't feel so bad because now they were rid of a handicapped kid who had strained their lives so much, made it more difficult for them." She was speaking through tears now. "And then when my dad was run over…it put it all into perspective. It made me think of how it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter who dies, it still…_hurts_." Her face was twitching, and she sucked in a breath. "_Someone _will hurt for you." She was on the verge of sobbing. "I wanted someone to hurt for _me. _I would picture my funeral, and I would think of what each person would say there. I would think of what each person regretted; how they wished to have reached out to me before I died. And I thought of heaven, and how peaceful and blissful and amazing it must be up there, and how much better it must be than Earth. How I would get everything I wanted, nothing would be bad. And now…n-now…and now-w—"

Troy did something he did not know why he did.

He knelt over the side of the tub and pulled her into a tender hug. "And now what?" he whispered quietly into her ear.

"Now I don't want to hurt you," Gabriella divulged slowly. Troy nodded, gripping her tighter. "Now if I die, I would hurt you. I love you, Troy Bolton."

"I love you too, Gabriella Montez."

His forehead leaned against hers, their eyes closing, pressing their lips to each other's, not really kissing but just feeling. Gabriella began to massage her lips with his suggestively, but Troy knew better and retreated.

He sat on the toilet cover again. "We're not done," he stated firmly. Gabriella nodded, and crossed her arms over her waist. "Is that it? Is there anything else that compelled you to go to that suicidal state?"

"Well…there was Sharpay…"

"Sharpay? As in Evans?"

"Which other Sharpay do you know? Yes, Evans…she took much pleasure in seeing me suffer," Gabriella replied matter-of-factly. "I don't know why I succumbed to her. She was just so authoritative. Usually, I'm the one who likes to have control if I can, but with her…I just couldn't. I was too intimidated. I don't like being the inferior one. We just clashed, and she took advantage of that." Gabriella rolled her eyes and squeezed one of her hands in her other. "I let that get to me."

Troy felt his face burn. Gabriella noticed this instantly.

"_What_? What do you know, Bolton?" Gabriella snapped briskly.

"I didn't want to tell you this…I never wanted to have to tell you this…"

"—_What_?"

"…She hated you because she was obsessed with me. She knew that you were really close with me and just wanted me all to herself. She hated Avery, too." Gabriella's jaw unhinged, her face shaping as if to ask _How do you _know_ this? _"I overheard her telling Ryan, that weird twin of hers." Gabriella nodded dejectedly, her heart caving. "Is there anything else?" Troy asked softly, pitying her to some extent.

"Well, there was you and Avery."

"Me and Avery?" Troy gulped hoarsely.

"No, Darbus and the Doodlebops," Gabriella played more lightheartedly, sarcasm reigning strongly in her voice. "I'm just kidding, by the way."

"I know."

"Well, you two were just…killing me. All the time. You together, you talking about her and vice versa…and it made me loathe Avery, for having you…and then I was disgusted with myself for despising her over practically nothing. For something that wasn't fair." Gabriella swallowed forcibly, playing with her hands.

"I'm sorr—"

"—You don't have to apologize. It's not your fault," Gabriella cut in curtly, staring closely at her tangled fingers.

Silence.

Gabriella consciously enveloped her arms around her waist.

"Would you mind getting my green and white bikini?" Gabriella requested benevolently. Her swirling orbs were soft, and Troy held them gently with his own understanding eyes. "The one with all of those stripes? It's in the top right drawer." Troy nodded, and stood to retrieve the article.

Gabriella basked rather blithely in the warm water as she waited, exhaust beginning to creep upon her.

Troy's face was unexpectedly hard when he returned.

"I cannot _believe _you." He carelessly threw the summer garment at her, and Gabriella speedily strapped it on. His hands coiled into fists.

"Excuse me?" Gabriella asked innocently, wholly bewildered.

Troy wagged a small packet of white powder that he had hid behind his back in her face. "_This_," he fumed heatedly, just barely under control. "I found it in your drawer."

Gabriella gulped, not daring to meet his eyes, her own filling with fresh tears.

"_Well_?" Troy sighed. "God, I should've known. You were always so secretive and fuck…" His hands ran wildly through his hair. He needed to sit down. He absentmindedly jumped up onto the bathroom counter. "I just can't believe it." He laughed nervously to himself, Gabriella frowning with scarlet, blameworthy eyes as she watched him, feeling an overwhelming amount of guilt. "I thought you were smarter than this, Gabriella."

"I am," Gabriella whimpered in a small, frightened voice.

"I thought you would never, ever interfere with this shit," he sputtered disgustedly. He angrily flung the small packet at the wall, and it slid onto the floor.

"I didn't," Gabriella whispered somberly. She could feel her stomach trembling. "It was my dad's." Troy was breathing hard. "I found it in his coat pocket yesterday morning." She bit down hard on her lip. "I never thought he would do such a thing."

Troy sighed despairingly at the shameful admission, emotionlessly tossing her a towel, his head dropping in his hands. She snatched the dry towel and nimbly bundled herself in it, stepping out of the water and letting the liquid drain out of the tub. She stood motionlessly in front of Troy, hardly moving or breathing, fixedly watching him distress in his internal battle. Troy sensed her presence but did not have the energy to steal a glimpse or speak to her. He could not bare himself. Her heart surged with sympathy and empathy, her stomach staggering queasily as she observed his disgraced, limp profile.

"Do you need a hug?" she murmured quietly, an obvious ring of love in her voice.

Troy nodded stiffly, unearthing the energy to glance up at her helplessly with tears glimmering in his poignant blue eyes. Gabriella silently pulled his heavy head to rest on her chest, shushing him tenderly and knotting her hands gently in his hair. "Shh…" she whispered into his forehead, her voice itself like a melodious, calming lullaby. His strong arm enclosed around her little waist, gingerly tugging her closer and caging her small figure in between his legs. He closed his eyes against her chest, his nose lightly digging into the gap between her plump breasts. His hot breath steamed her smooth skin, making Gabriella shudder.

"I should be giving _you_ a hug." Gabriella shook her head, heart skipping. "I can't believe you are real," he whispered endearingly.

Gabriella balled some of his hair into her tiny hand, pressing a chaste kiss to the top of his skull. "I'm not going anywhere," she whispered seriously. "I promise you. As long as you want me, I will be here."

"I will always be here," Troy whispered throatily. "If you want me or if you don't, I will be here."

Gabriella felt her own eyes water at this. She gripped his hair harder, her other hand kneading the back of his neck lovingly. "Okay," she choked out somehow.

"I know you might not be ready to say that, and that's okay," Troy elaborated gently. "I just want you to know that."

"I've loved you the whole time, you know," Gabriella whispered.

"As have I," Troy hummed into her breast. "You know I have."

"Now I know you have," Gabriella agreed softly, her tiny fingers twisting the strands of his hair. Troy's hand reached up and tenderly stroked her own elegant tendrils.

"So for our first official date," Troy began, "what will we do?" His other hand snaked up her leg underneath the towel and warmly fondled her upper thigh. Her breathing hitched.

"I have an idea." Her lissome fingers traced invisible lines down the side of his face.

"Proceed?"

Gabriella dazedly continued to massage his neck with one hand, the other beginning to rub his back. His tongue swiftly licked the smooth flesh of her left breast, a quiet moan emitting from between his lips.

"Troy!" Gabriella yelped at the feeling of his wet tongue on one of her very sensitive areas. She felt her face redden as her nipples hardened. Troy smirked knowingly.

"Well, what was your idea?"

"Let's just watch a movie now or something," she suggested calmly, toying with the short wisps of hair at the back of his neck. "Something mellow."

"As a first date?"

"Why the hell not?"

Gabriella squealed in surprise as Troy swept her into his arms bridal style, carrying her into her bedroom and gently setting her toweled form on the bed. He flicked on the television she had in front of the quilted bed, picking a random DVD and inserting it. He then lay next to her, gathering her into his arms so naturally. Gabriella felt so comfortable like that, with him, in that position.

"So how many other guys have you dated?" Troy interviewed curiously. "Don't give me that face! You knew this question was going to find you one time or another."

"Fine…" Gabriella resigned with a slight smile. "There was this skinny kid Sean in fourth grade, whose last name I can't remember…Jesse Worth in eighth for like a week…Dan something-or-other in freshman year for another brief three weeks…and that's it," Gabriella promised. "I swear. I'm not every experienced. Can you tell?"

"Not one bit."

Gabriella rolled her eyes and tried to pay attention the movie.

"I Am Legend?" Gabriella raised one eyebrow at Troy and stifled a giggle.

"Yeah, what's wrong with that? We could always watch Sin City if you want…"

"No, no, this is fine, thank you." Gabriella slapped his chest playfully, recalling the one instance when Troy had wanted to watch Sin City. Gabriella had not been able to bare its gory gruesomeness and had cowered against his chest the whole time, until Troy caved and reluctantly switched it off.

They were mostly silent throughout the whole movie; both were completely bushed, tired from their previous fighting. They both just wanted peace.

Troy rubbed kindhearted circles on Gabriella's hipbone, and she sucked in her breath, her own hand stroking his knee.

"What time is it, baby?" Gabriella asked quietly. She closed her tired eyes and snuggled in close to Troy.

Troy glanced up at the digital clock next to her bed. "Nearly three, Gabi." His hand ventured up to the flat expanse of her stomach, his fingertips lightly raking back and forth. Gabriella felt her stomach muscles quaver under his careful touch, her heart fluttering.

The movie was near its end. Troy was embossed in the movie, his skillful fingers still absentmindedly caressing his girlfriend's stomach.

"I can call you my boyfriend, right?" Gabriella croaked ever so softly.

Troy nodded, inclining his head to press his lips to her forehead, eliciting a just barely audible moan from Gabriella.

"Do you feel guilty?" Gabriella questioned considerately, her fingers stroking his chin and cheeks gently. "That you're dating me right after breaking up with Avery?"

"Avery knows, Gabi," Troy rubbed his nose against Gabriella's. "She knows that I left her for you."

"You said she said she was okay with it."

"I did."

The atmosphere grew intolerably dense once more. "Do you really think she is?" Gabriella asked heavily.

Troy sighed, resting his chin on the top of Gabriella's head, one hand affectionately tickling her knee. "I think she might not be now, but she knows that I'm happier now, and I know she just wants me to be happy," Troy whispered matter-of-factly into Gabriella's dark curls. "She might not be okay right now, but she will be eventually, and I know that she knows that."

"I just feel bad—"

"—Don't," Troy mumbled drawlingly against the soft shell of her ear. "It's not your fault."

"It feels like my fault, Troy," Gabriella murmured remorsefully, "and that makes me feel bad."

"Well, don't," Troy whispered against her temple.

Gabriella sighed and tried to turn her attention back to the movie, but she just couldn't find her focus.

It ended five minutes later anyway.

* * *

**A/N: I don't own I Am Legend either. **

**There's going to be one more chapter...I think. **

**Please, if you have any questions, don't hesitate. If you don't ask them, I'll forget to answer them. Trust me. ;)**


	4. In Love and In Distress

**Disclaimer: I do not own Disney or High School Musical, or anything affiliated with either one. **

* * *

Chad watched with amusement as his best friend worried.

Troy straightened out his sleek black tuxedo nervously, steadying an anxious breath. He refolded the white collar of the neatly ironed shirt underneath, tucking in the softly colored flower in his breast pocket again. He squinted his luminous orbs in the small side mirror, noticing how they seemed to have a certain special sparkle that particular night. His floppy chestnut hair rested flatly on his head, some stray strands coming down to curtain his eyes. He restlessly brushed the thin tresses aside, checking his pearly whites in the mirror and puffing carbon dioxide onto his reflection, fogging the glass. He fretfully tested his breath for any offending odor; it seemed to smell fine. The basketball captain quickly popped in a breath mint from his pocket anyway. He frenziedly retied his dress shoes, making sure the laces were tight enough, pulling up his socks. He ensured his pant zipper was pulled up all the way—it was. He unbuttoned the tux and then rebuttoned it. He verified that his father's silver cuff links were on correctly. He sucked in a deep, haggard breath, biting down hard on the insides of his cheeks.

"Calm down, dude," Chad slapped him confidently on the back, suppressing a mocking snicker. "Chillax. You'll be fine. It's just Gabriella. It's just the prom."

"_Exactly_," Troy mumbled distractedly, taking a last minute to tidy his hair, which was still recovering from its shower, once more in the side view mirror. "It's senior prom. The night that every girl lives for. The event that needs to be flawless or else. And I don't want to think about what that 'or else' plays out to be. I'm not going down that road, Chad."

Chad was already down it.

"But you're lucky," Chad added casually, kicking off his shoes heedlessly in the car. Troy reclined his head tiredly in the driver's seat of the truck, gazing up impassively at the fathomless blanket of blithe blue that cloaked Albuquerque, speckled with tiny metallic sprinkles. He was going to miss that wonderful New Mexico sky more than he had imagined. He sighed despairingly, panicky and weary. "At least Gabriella doesn't think that way." Chad's face twisted in complaint, slouching miserably in the tattered leather seat of Troy's roofless truck, his own stare venturing up to the breathtaking night sky. "Mine does."

"Yeah…well, Taylor's another story," Troy replied tensely, not even really thinking about Chad's domineering, outrageously aggressive girlfriend. He leveled out the tuxedo shakily again, his eyes still glued to the heavens. "Right?"

"Whatever, man…. Hey, where did you buy that tux?" Chad digressed lamely. He frowned as he glimpsed his own pathetic rag of a suit. It was a disgraceful gray shade and extremely wrinkled, loose threads dangling shabbily at its uneven hems. It produced an unpleasant stench that suggested it had been sitting in a mothballed attic for quite some time. "It's pretty fucking cool…classy and formal, yet still cool…."

"Gabriella got it for me," Troy explained curtly, returning his full attention back to his teammate, his cheeks flushing crimson.

Chad pointed at his rapidly reddening face and laughed loudly. "Oh Lord," the basketball fanatic muttered between shameless chuckles. "Oh good _God_…"

"Stop it," Troy snapped flimsily, sighing and thoroughly rubbing his face. "I don't see why it's that funny." Troy coughed into his stiff fist. "Alright, we should get a move on before the girls call us screaming and yank our hair out." Chad rolled his eyes as he wiggled his feet back into his shoes, wrenching up his socks in the darkness as he did so.

Troy revved the rusty truck to a start, maneuvering the old vehicle out of its parking space and steering it down the empty, deserted parking lot one-handedly, his body slouched sluggishly against the car door. He sighed again, his free hand mussing up his hair nervously and kneading the back of his neck.

"Honestly, Captain," Chad began seriously, his face straight. His familiar black eyes were friendly and kindhearted, proving to Troy that he was not going to jest. "Are you okay?" Troy did not connect their eyes, his own orbs staring unemotionally out of the window and into the naked night. The ruby class ring on his finger glinted in the enchanting moonlight as his hand loosely gripped the wheel, driving ever so languidly.

"Are you joking me? No, I am _not _fucking okay." Troy heatedly pulled over into a different parking space, slamming his hand on the wheel furiously. The horn screeched vociferously in complaint, destroying the peculiar serenity of the landscape that had brought the two there in the first place. It had once been a place where their parents used to take them on the weekends. No one really came there; to most, there was nothing special about that ruddy patch of pounded asphalt and the dreary wood and lake it overlooked. Sure, the exclusive view was pleasant—but to Troy and Chad, it symbolized so much more.

It was peaceful.

A kind of calmness everyone needed in his or her life, from one source or another.

This was their source, and it never failed them. They went there to think—to clear their brains of fearful thoughts about college and exams and parties. They went there to remember what _really_ mattered in life—not just to think, then; to think _straight_.

On prom night, it seemed like the best place to be.

Troy glanced at the miniature digital clock he had hopelessly taped up beside the steering wheel—the tired, fluorescent blue numbers flicked 7:22. They were supposed to be at Taylor's at 7:30, and her house was twenty minutes away. Troy groaned.

"Dude," Chad started quietly, shaking his shoulder. "Tell me what's up."

"I don't want to talk about it, Chad." Troy faced the window, his back to his friend.

"C'mon," Chad tried to persuade him. "We've known each other since preschool. We tell each other everything. Tell me. What's up?"

Troy put his face in his hands.

"Is it college?" Chad guessed in a low, careful voice.

Troy nodded and rubbed his eyes with his elbow. "Yeah. Yeah, it is. It's just that Gabriella and I aren't going to be even in the same state, you know? And though we've only been dating for a month…" His throat burned as he swallowed, and tears pricked his eyes. He embarrassedly turned away from Chad again. "I don't want to be apart from her. I don't think I can bear it."

"You know you never get the girl after high school, dude," Chad sighed. "It's just the way it goes. It's time to move on."

"I don't want to move on," Troy whispered somberly into his wrist, feeling a hot tear sting his cheek.

Chad sighed wearily again. "Troy, you're a great guy. You do the best you can in everything, and you fight for what is right. You _always _find a way to straighten things out. You're everyone's friend, and help to everyone. You are an ambitious guy who can do anything you put your mind to. You know what you want, and instead of sitting on your ass and dreaming, you run out there and get it. You can fix anything you want to fix, change anything you want to change. But this…this is something that you can't change." Chad paused and heaved in a sigh. "I'm sorry, man."

"There's nothing to be sorry for."

7:29.

"Let's get a move on now, Mr. Afrotastic." Troy rumbled the battered truck to a start again. "Lord, we're gonna get our asses whipped," Troy garbled under his breath.

"Oh shit…. If there's really a God up there, he would make a volcano erupt under 10 Willow Drive at precisely this moment…"

* * *

It wasn't Gabriella who minded if their dates were tardy. It was Taylor, of course.

The dark-skinned beauty was standing outside with a freshly manicured hand rooted firmly on the curve of her hip, her brown eyes narrowed on the exhausted vehicle as it growled to a stop in the McKessie's driveway. Her prom dress was very festive, but a little too bold for Troy's taste; dyed an intense, loud orange, the material thin with a long skirt that billowed in the wind. Her shoes were also the same shade of startling orange and were glittered in every place imaginable, the heels higher than Troy had ever seen in his life. The makeup was excessively heavy on her fiery, irritated features.

"Oh no…oh no…Bolton, I _told_ you this was not going to be pretty…. Turn around! Fuck, _turn around_, _Bolton_!"

Troy sniggered as he lurched to an abrupt halt in the McKessie's paved, roundabout driveway, purposely ignoring his best friend's hysterical protests. Troy pushed open his car door, impatiently shutting it and hastily scampering up the steps of the familiar house.

"TROY ALEXANDER BOLTON, YOU ARE A—"

But Troy swiftly brushed past a fuming Taylor without a word and skidded through the wide open door behind her, dodging up the ostentatious staircase placed in the foyer and darting down the long stretch of hallway at the top. He spotted that the last door was propped open, a grin imprinted on his face when he found the love of his life joyously humming to herself. She was applying the finishing touches to her makeup in the huge mirror Taylor had in her bedroom, murmuring the memorized lyrics to herself absentmindedly. She did not notice Troy watching admiringly at the door.

"All I wanna do is be with you…be with you…" she sang softly under her breath, fixing up the dark tendrils that were pinned up and piled on top of her hair. "There's nothin' we can't do…just wanna be with you…"

"Only you…" Troy belted out.

"No matter where life takes us, nothing can break us apart…" Gabriella continued to croon in her gentle, silky voice absentmindedly, her nimble fingers at work on her hair.

"You know it's tr—"

"—TROY!" Gabriella jolted up in shock, anxiously smoothing out her dress as she finally noticed the intruder. "Um, Troy!" Her exotic eyes glimmered effervescently as they settled on his elegant profile.

"That's me," Troy beamed exuberantly at her as he stepped towards her petite form, encircling an arm around her waist and pulling her close, their hips touching. Gabriella felt her breath be snatched away, her heart thumping madly in her chest. "I missed you," Troy whispered tenderly with a chaste kiss to her jaw, leaving his lips pressed confidently at that spot. Gabriella's stomach dropped at the contact, shivers racing up and down her spine, her big brown eyes instinctively drooping.

"Troy," Gabriella murmured warmly against his neck. "It's just been a day."

"Exactly. Twenty-four excruciating hours. One thousand four hundred forty-four agonizing minutes. Eighty-six thousand four-hundred unbearable seconds." His nose brushed against her cheek. "Now I don't know about you, but that's a lot."

Gabriella sighed and rested her head against her boyfriend's chest comfortably. She would never feel the same ease with anyone else. She was just going to have to face it. Troy buried his nose in Gabriella's curls, trying not to sneeze when he sniffed something odd.

"What's that…_smell_?"

"It's just this new spray Tay let me use," Gabriella explained, her thumb lazily designing patterns on his right temple. Gabriella grinned broadly at him and sloppily smushed her velvety lips against Troy's for a brief moment, then promptly moving to sit back down in front of the mirror again. There was an appalling assortment of cosmetics thrown haphazardly about the table in front of the mirror, making Troy dizzy. "You're lucky I had to take off my lipstick before."

He swore he could hear some shrill hollers in the distant background, generated by a voice of which greatly resembled Taylor's, but he didn't care about that. Right then, his mind was only occupied with Gabriella.

Troy lingered by the back of her chair, placing his hands on her bare shoulders dotingly. Gabriella shuddered with delight when his thumbs began tracing circles on her blades, so gentle and so careful.

"Why did you have to take it off?" he asked curiously, his hands beginning to massage her shoulders more vigorously and extracting an erotic, irrepressible moan from Gabriella.

"Didn't work with my dress. The color looked different once I put it on."

Troy took a moment to really study her dress.

It was a cross between a brilliant silver and a feathery, pastel blue—there seemed to be many different fabrics overlapping to create this beautiful, delicate tinge. The top was a tight tube from her breasts to her waist, where it then blossomed into a huge, poofy hoop skirt that shimmered with tiny silver sparkles. But it wasn't tacky, and it didn't look like a costume; it just worked, and seemed to fit Gabriella's personality perfectly. Silver heels were strapped to her elfin feet, not too tall and not too short, and not too much sparkle on them. Little diamond earrings dangled from Gabriella's earlobes; a thin, silver chain adorned her neck, another diamond pendant hanging down at the middle. The taut top pushed up her breasts and exposed just the right amount of cleavage for Troy. He could not believe he was so lucky.

"Damn, do you look gorgeous," Troy mumbled breathlessly, entranced as he continued to knead her smooth shoulders. "Shit…"

Gabriella giggled softly. "Thank you, Wildcat," she muttered sexily with a smirk and smoky eyes, beginning to remove the bobby pins out of her brunette coils.

"No no no, don't!" Troy objected, squeezing her tiny hand and sweeping it to the side. "Why're you taking them out?"

Gabriella laughed aloud; that striking, melodic laugh Troy adored so much. "Calm down, Troy. I had to spray the underside of my hair so it wouldn't frizz, and so I had to pin it up so I could cover every area…you know how humid it is out tonight," Gabriella sighed dryly with a disgruntled glimpse outside Taylor's bedroom window.

Troy was nearly startled at how the sky had clouded over since he and Chad had been at the cliff. Now gloomy, weighted gray clouds and thick air masked the clear New Mexico stretch of sky he loved so much.

"You guys were at the cliff?" Gabriella inquired knowingly as she continued to remove the pins from her hair, placing them on the table.

"Huh?" Troy asked, bewildered. "Did I say that aloud?"

"Yes, sir," Gabriella smiled gaily at him. He could not believe how good of a mood she tended to be in now. "You guys go there so much. It's got to be gorgeous."

Troy shrugged indifferently, bending his body and curving his head from behind her to press a kiss to her cheek, closing his eyes. "Hmm…" he murmured against her flesh.

Gabriella reached up a hand and rubbed the back of his neck. "We should go now," Gabriella whispered. "You know, it's 8:24 and it started at 8:00…"

"Screw prom," Troy drawled lazily against the back of her neck, his lips touching her uncovered skin and making her insides bounce. "How about you and me, we stay here and have our own party…and I can kiss you…and you can kiss me…and so on…and we never have to go to stupid prom…"

"Nuh-uh," Gabriella smiled with a smirk edging at her lips, eliminating the last of the pins from her hair and standing up. She playfully tugged Troy by the hand towards the door with her. "Come on. It took Tay and I ages to discover this dress, and then it took me ages to persuade my mom to let me buy it because it was beyond expensive, and then it took the tailor ages to fix all the things that needed to be fixed and fit it to my size, and then it took us ages to discover pretty shoes that matched and fit well, and then it took me ages to correctly put the dress and heels on earlier, and then it took me ages to do my hair, and then it took ages to put on my makeup. So if you can't already tell from what I've just told you, we're _going_."

"Will it take ages for you to finally give me a kiss?" Troy puckered his lips suggestively, batting his eyelashes sarcastically.

"Never, baby."

Gabriella leaned in and attached their lips in one last soft, sensual kiss.

"I want more of that later," Troy whispered in her ear, his hand traveling down to grip her ass. Gabriella rolled her eyes and guided Troy out of the room, down to where Taylor and Chad were still arguing lividly in the foyer. They both peered up at Troy and Gabriella as they made their way down the majestic staircase and neared the quarrelling pair.

Chad glanced briefly at his watch. "Roughly half an hour. That's definitely enough for one good quickie, ain't it?"

"Shut up, Chad," Taylor defended fearlessly for her best friend.

Troy and Gabriella had not had sex since that day. They were not hesitant, intimidated, or scared; they just had never really got around to it. According to all their friends (and the remainder of their nosy school), they always seemed hornier than anyone—so it would be a real surprise if they said they had not done the deed in a month. In fact, they hadn't said that—they just let everyone make their false assumptions. Everyone could keep their noses out.

"Come on," Gabriella urged, her voice deteriorating into an irritated whine at the end. "Stop arguing. Let's just go." She gently clamped Troy's forearm and he gracefully led her out the front door and down the front steps, wordlessly teasing her about the fantasy prom she had told him she had dreamed about as a kid. He gathered her long princess dress carefully after she sat in the truck, piling the huge bundles of fabric on her lap and at her feet. Gabriella giggled at this. Chad and Taylor had decided to take Taylor's car, because Troy's truck only accommodated two people, as did Taylor's. Well, currently. Taylor was already beginning to move out of her house, and so there were countless boxes stacked in the trunk and in the backseat and pretty much anywhere else she could stuff them.

"It's going to rain," Gabriella sighed desolately with a measly look at the overcast sky. "It's going to pour."

Troy's free hand impulsively latched onto her knee, journeying up to the inner part of her thigh over the glossy textile of her dress and caressing it gently. Gabriella felt her heart spring up the second his fingertips touched her. "Don't think so pessimistically," Troy whispered quietly as he stared out at the still, empty road, feeling like a total hypocrite as he said so. His tongue tasted bitter.

Gabriella was silent. She glimpsed over her shoulder at Taylor's car, which had been right at their tail, watching as Taylor and Chad were held back at a red light.

"Taylor and Chad have been held back by a red light."

"They'll find their way." Troy smiled softly at Gabriella. "Eventually."

"So Berkeley," Gabriella began after a short, peaceful pause of quiet. "Looking forward to it?"

Troy sighed, swallowing with difficulty. "Define 'looking forward to it.'"

"Troy," Gabriella said sternly.

"Gabriella," Troy copied in the same firm voice.

"I just want you to tell me the truth." Gabriella shifted her body so she faced Troy completely, but Troy's orbs remained set on the drowsy nighttime street.

"I _am _telling you the truth," Troy insisted rigidly.

"It doesn't seem so. I can tell you're not okay with it. When are you going to give up the act, Troy? When it's too late and I'm already off at Harvard?" Gabriella's tone was considerably icier.

Troy sighed again, ignoring his girlfriend's complaints as he pulled into the bare parking lot of a work office that had already closed for the day.

"Look," Troy began, adjusting himself in the seat sideways so he faced Gabriella. "Gabriella. You've talked about going to Harvard your entire life. So why is it any different now? Your mom is ecstatic that you're going. I couldn't be any prouder of you. I mean, a perfect score on the SATs? That's one in a million. No, more. And you just can't let something like Harvard go." His hands ran through his hair nervously again, that habit certainly something that would never cease.

"Troy." She relished saying his name. "I love you. The last month has been by far the best of my life. I've felt this happiness…this blitheness that you don't find everyday. In fact, it's incredibly hard to come by. And I don't want to lose this contentedness—"

"What are you getting to, Gabi?" Troy interrupted sharply.

Gabriella sighed, "I'm just saying that maybe you should stop thinking about other people and just…please Troy. Tell me the truth. I demand it. You're only making it harder for the both of us."

Their fingers absentmindedly intertwined in between them, each other's warmth soothing in their dispute.

"No, okay? I'm not happy with the fact that we're going to be separated. Why? Are _you_?" Troy snapped impatiently. He automatically felt guilty for snapping so harshly at Gabriella, who had recoiled slightly in her seat, her beautiful face contorted in a mixture of concern, offense, and desolateness. Troy sighed hollowly, guilt burdening him more severely, engulfing her in his arms and pulling her and her big fluffy dress across the controls and onto his lap. He dug his nose into the warm crook of her neck, squeezing her tightly in his embrace and not ever wanting to let her go.

"I love you," Gabriella murmured gravely into his chest. "I love you and I never want you to forget that or forget me and everything we went through and everything we did and we have done. That's all I'm asking, Troy." Her voice diminished to a whisper. "Please don't forget me."

Troy pressed a hand lovingly to the back of her head. "You're crazy," he mumbled with a kiss to her neck that made her sizzle with intimacy.

"Crazy in love," Gabriella muttered back, her fingers distractedly following the creases of his open palm, which she had laid flat on her stomach.

They closed their eyes, thinking how they could stay there in that position forever.

"Screw prom," Gabriella whispered. "Screw the whole damn world."

Troy's hand gravitated up to her back, his fingertips trailing up and down her spine gently.

"That's my girl."

A/N: This story is extremely grave and mature. It's heavy-duty; definitely a lot to take, so if you think you can't handle stories that deal with suicide, I am warning you now that this one does.

Thank you so much for the reviews :)

This is not the last chapter.


	5. How Dare You

**A/N: Okay...I know you are all going to murder me, but this is NOT the last chapter. It just didn't all fit. I'm sorry. But the next one will _probably _be the last one. Probably. We'll have to see if it fits.**

**Thank you for all the support with this story! I don't know if any of you saw, but I posted a new story called Every Man For Himself. That's going to be a real full-length story. Please check it out! I worked really hard on it. :D Thank you.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Disney or High School Musical, or anything affiliated with either one. **

* * *

The earsplitting bang of thunder rippled and rumbled ruthlessly through Albuquerque, rudely joggling Troy and Gabriella awake at the same moment.

They had fallen asleep.

Gabriella glanced at the old digital clock. "Troy." She clenched his bicep. "Troy, it's 9:18!"

"How the fuck did that happen?"

"I think we fell asleep…" Gabriella faded as she peered up at the murky, dismal sky, "and it's about to rain."

"Okay then."

"Meaning…we should go somewhere with a roof."

Troy jerked the scrap metal of a truck to a start. "Home it is, then."

"No, Troy. Can we just go to prom?" Gabriella pleaded with a pout pulling down her bottom lip.

"I thought we were screwing prom." He looked so adorable when he was confused.

"That was before I remembered how much time and effort I put into my appearance for tonight. Please? How about just half an hour? Will thirty minutes really hurt?" She looked so cute begging like that. "We can still have our party afterwards."

"Fine," Troy caved easily.

"Yes!"

Gabriella began to move back to her seat, but Troy anchored a sturdy arm around her. "Now just where do you think you're going?"

"Back to my seat," his girlfriend laughed.

"No, you're not."

"Are you just going to drive with me on your lap?"

"Why not?"

"It's dangerous, Troy. And there are police around."

"We're almost at school. And plus, there are hardly any cars out. And what happened to screwing the whole damn world?' Troy pressed his lips to her ear, his teeth raking up and down the outer shell gently, biting down softly on the lobe and making her squirm in his comfortable grasp. "C'mon…" She melted in his arms, knowing she would never find someone like this again. Knowing she would probably not be as daring as Troy made her, not have as much fun. This made her sad. Troy eased the truck out of the parking lot with a firm grip on Gabriella, who was short enough so that he could easily see over her head. It was not long at all until they reached the school, so many cars crammed into the parking lot that Troy ended up driving circles in it for about ten minutes before locating a free space.

"Finally," Troy sighed in relief. He pecked Gabriella's collarbone, unable to stop kissing or touching her. He had been that way the moment it had really settled into his brain that they were really going to be separated.

They quickly slipped in the front doors after showing their tickets, muffling their laughter in response to their lateness and the way everyone gaped at them for that.

The gym was transformed completely—well, almost. The gigantic room was dark and masked with shadows, multicolored paper lanterns hanging high from the ceiling that provided wonderfully warm yet mysterious glows. Festive streamers were draped across the ceiling, taped from one end to the other, crossing over every which way. There were balloons everywhere, glitter and handmade confetti littering the shiny gym floor. A long wooden table had refreshments neatly set up on it, pushed to one end of the gym, the opposite corner where the amateur band played. There was a muddle of circular red tables and stools that appeared to have been stolen from the cafeteria, packed to another corner.

The scene was exactly what Gabriella had expected of East High.

It hardly looked any different from any other dance except the fact that there was a real live band, and they usually had a deejay. Also, the refreshments were much more elaborate. As a whole though, it did seem more organized.

"See?" Troy muttered huskily into his girlfriend's ear. "We're not missing a thing."

"Come on, Wildcat," Gabriella rolled her eyes amusedly and tugged him playfully by the forearm. "It's prom. You can't give it up. It's that once in a lifetime thing. Please try to enjoy yourself? For me?"

"Fine," Troy mumbled gruffly with a chaste kiss to her cheek.

They knew that the whole school was watching. Not only could the couple feel their prying, curious eyes glued to their figures, but the two also knew they had become the It Couple, and they had become it quickly. They were on everyone's radars—hell, even the teachers' now. But they didn't care. They didn't try to put on a show. They just lived their lives and behaved like any other couple deeply in love.

"Let's go dance," Gabriella whispered eagerly, her excited eyes embossed to the wide space reserved for dancing. Troy noted the bouncing energy and lively fire thriving in the depths of her bottomless eyes, and did not object. The gym floor was covered with bodies in the dull darkness, most of them in pairs, grinding fiercely under the thick canopy of weaved streamers that dipped low and buried the dirty dancing from the poor chaperones, who garrulously chattered in a far corner. Gabriella enthusiastically pulled Troy to the heart of the throng, looping his arm around her tiny waist and boldly connecting their lips. Troy moaned and quickly responded, his tongue entering her mouth heedlessly, her own hands running wildly through his hair. Troy smirked knowingly against her mouth and retracted his tongue, massaging her velvety lips with his. Gabriella just barely suppressed a moan, in turn shamelessly pushing her groin up against his. Troy's heart jerked in reply, and he instinctively thrust his lower body forward.

"Gabs," Troy groaned as if he were being tortured, tugging her petite body closer in thoughtless urgency. "Gabi…baby…"

"What?" Gabriella feigned innocence, toying with the strands of his hair at the top of his head. She wore that doe-eyed expression that made Troy's knees wobble vulnerably.

"How much longer until _our_ party?" he grunted gutturally against her open chest, pressing a casual kiss there. "Which I know will be so much better," Gabriella swore she heard Troy grumble under his breath.

"Not much, Bolton," Gabriella muttered faintly into his temple. "Just dance for now."

They did.

Troy was not much of a dancer, but then again, neither was Gabriella. They guided each other and tried their best to do their best. They were horrible, but neither could care less on how they looked. They were beginning to get hot and sweaty when the songs changed from fast and upbeat, to slow and romantic. Gabriella slid his arm around her waist again, her fingers linking behind his neck and pulling his lips closer to hers. Troy fused them together fearlessly, and they kissed lovingly for the majority of the time they slowdanced, in a sweet, caring way that made Gabriella's heart swoon. After some time, Gabriella reluctantly detached their lips, panting heavily and resting her forehead against his steamy one. The shady atmosphere had turned smoky, the dim shadows around them weightier.

"Let's go sit down for a while," Troy garbled dazedly against Gabriella's bruised lips. "For a break."

Gabriella nodded mutely, and Troy led her down to the less shadowy area that housed the round tables, horded with their elegantly dressed peers.

"Hey, Taylor, Kelsi, Martha," Gabriella acknowledged politely as she graciously seated herself on an empty stool next to Martha, gathering the silvery fabric of her dress and piling it on her lap.

"I was wondering where the fuck you and Troy had escaped to!" Taylor boomed in her strident, overconfident voice. She seemed to realize something for a split second, and then her mascara-heavy eyes engrossed. "Please don't tell me you two were—"

"—_No_," Gabriella interjected embarrassedly, blushing furiously and connecting her brilliant brown eyes with the surface of the table.

"Hi," an especially small-looking Kelsi addressed the newcomer courteously, her shy demeanor as resolute as ever. She exhibited a strapless, mushroom-tinged number, the glossy skirt beginning at her waist and terminating at her knees. It was simple; all one color, some adventurously darker brown fringing the hem of the dress. Not exactly Gabriella's pick, but it just seemed to be labeled "Kelsi." She wore no other jewelry apart from plain gold earrings, and no makeup, but there were traces of glitter in her straightened hair.

"Hey, Gabriella," Martha greeted assertively with a small spurt of buoyancy. She smiled benignly, her wide eyes welcoming and comfortingly inviting. She displayed a long dress that combined all shades of pink, it seemed—flirty and fun. Hers was much more complicated than anything Gabriella had seen the entire night. Rose-colored ribbons ran down one end, flamingo-tinted fabrics overlapped other magenta-shaded ones, and more—definitely spontaneous. Not something Gabriella would wear herself, but then again, there was not much Gabriella would wear as she had a very mellow taste.

"Hey guys," Gabriella smiled a bit timidly.

She was not too familiar with Kelsi and Martha. They were friends of Taylor's, and really still people she was just acquainted with. They were awfully shy around her, never speaking too much. It was as if she intimidated them, Gabriella noticed. From what she could collect, it was all from the stupid status she had gained from dating Troy and becoming the new It Couple. Honestly, she couldn't care less about that. It annoyed her. But more than that, she knew that it was because of her father's horrific death. Since then, they did not know how to talk to her. It wasn't just Kelsi and Martha; it was everyone she knew. Even people she had not known. People spoke gently to her, in careful murmurs, as if she were so delicate and that her heart would crack at even the mention of her father. But she was so much better now, and none of that would happen. Troy had taught her how to be fearless and talk about her father. She knew she had to. And yet, Kelsi and Martha just sat there with their jaws nervously unhinged, eyes bulging. Gabriella just wanted to be good friends with the two friendly girls. She would be a friend to anyone who respected her. She could not be picky, because that was just unfair.

There were many awkward silences. Taylor felt it was her fault for all the uncomfortable pauses, and brought it upon herself to nudge the conversation in the right direction until it easily flowed. It never really did. Kelsi was the most stubborn; she hardly opened her little mouth the entire time! She sat there rigidly, rubbing her clammy little palms together anxiously and generating a thick friction. Martha very gradually softened around the edges, her stiff spine relaxing and her lips prattling a bit more with every small conversation. It was mostly small talk for the majority of the time they spent speaking—they did not get too far beyond colleges they had toured and teachers they had and pep rallies they had attended, but Gabriella was fine with that. She was constantly stealing glances behind her where Troy was comfortably accommodated at another table with his friends, his back to her. They were very loud and animated and goofed off to no end but joyous, almost excited to be there, Gabriella observed, and that made her happy that Troy appeared happy and was enjoying himself.

After some good time though, the conversations began to curve towards more personal and deeper topics.

"So you and Jason," Taylor asked considerately to Martha. "How are you guys?"

"He's an idiot," Martha replied bitterly. "I am so glad I left him."

"What did he do?" Gabriella inquired innocently, looking up sympathetically at Martha.

"He just had no respect for me." Martha shook her head glumly. "He just called me his "woman" and I was just to show off. I was just a thing, not a person. I felt so used. He wouldn't admit that he was using me, and that only got me madder. So I just left him."

"I'm so sorry, Martha," Gabriella whispered empathetically, her heart weighing down and going out to the aspiring dancer.

"It's okay," Martha said a bit tearfully. "I'm almost over that jerk now. It was just the first time something like that ever happened to me, that's all."

"That happened to me," Taylor piped up, desperate to stir the conversation. "It was in freshman year. This boy named Caleb Cooley who used to come here told me he loved me and everything…and he was so sweet. I completely fell for the act." Taylor whispered the next part very gravely. "I let him have his way with me. I trusted him totally. I had given my virginity to him before I knew it. Then after that, he just isolated me and left me standing all alone. That's when I met Chad," Taylor blushed.

"And you and Troy?" Kelsi whispered softly. "How are you two?"

"We're perfect," Gabriella smiled gently. _Well, almost perfect. _

"Aww, he sounds like a such a darling," Martha doted fondly.

"He is," Gabriella beamed effervescently, proud of her boyfriend.

"So wait, aren't you two going off to different colleges?" Martha interrogated curiously. "On like, different ends of the country?"

Gabriella hesitated. "Yeah," she finally choked out queasily. She twiddled her thumbs nervously and then stopped the annoying habit.

"Wow, that must be hard," Kelsi commented sympathetically. "How did you guys decide on that?"

"We both didn't want each other stopping us from going to the best college we could," Gabriella said slowly. "We just wanted the best for each other." _Maybe the best for each of us is to be with each other_, Gabriella realized suddenly.

"Wow," Martha said softly. "So how are you taking it?"

Gabriella just sat there impassively for a moment, trying to shake the tears away from her eyes. _I can't breathe just thinking about it. Troy is my love. My one and only. School matters, but so does Troy. What am I doing? Am I even thinking? I don't like this at all. I want Troy. I _want _him and I want him forever. I don't want to leave him. I don't want to be alone. _She shrugged after some time.

"Honey…" Taylor began.

"No, Taylor, it's fine," Gabriella croaked faintly. "Really."

"So how is _he _taking it?" Martha interviewed in a fragile whisper.

_He lies about it. He says he's okay, but he's not. I know it. I just want to do something to help him, to show him that I am scared too. I know he wants me as bad as I want him, and that only makes it worse. He's keeping it all inside. He's afraid to tell me, afraid to hurt my feelings and me. But what he doesn't know is that he won't hurt me by telling me the truth. By not telling me the truth he is hurting me. He's suffering and doesn't want to admit it, and as much as it hurts him, it hurts me to see him that way. _

"He's okay," Gabriella stated curtly, her eyes cast downwards.

_I want you, Troy. I want you. _

_I love you. _

A godlike image of Troy fogged her vision. Those fathomless blue eyes, so mesmerizing and full of feeling. That floppy brown hair of his, that she loved so much to comb her fingers through. That nose; those cheeks; that chin; those perfect, velvety _lips_. And that defined athletic body of his…so sexy and muscular and gorgeous. But more than anything. The way he laughed, so beautifully. The way he thought so intensely when he did his homework, poring over every problem responsibly until he was certain he got the correct answer for each one. The way he brought her favorite flowers to her door at one in the morning when he knew she couldn't fall asleep, just to see her smile. The way he respected her. The way he always put her first. The way he loved her. How could she leave someone behind she loved so much? Someone she would never find again?

Tears sizzled in her glossy eyes. "Excuse me," she stammered blindly through her tears, staggering clumsily to a stand. "I just need some thinking time."

And she plainly scuttled away.

* * *

She wallowed over aimlessly at the refreshments table. She must have had eight cups of that overly fruity, blood red punch, but she felt magnetized to that one shadowed corner. It was her little hiding spot. She would feel bad interrupting Troy and his friends, and she didn't want Martha and Kelsi and Taylor to waste their special prom worrying over her. She was just very…frazzled, and she just needed some time to clear her head. She hazily slopped some more punch into her cup and swallowed it down in large, harried gulps.

"Hey," came a soft, recognizable voice.

Gabriella glanced up to see Avery, the pale, straight strands of her strawberry blonde hair streaming down her small back, her hazel eyes wide and the friendliest she'd ever seen them appear. Avery was wearing a strapless, rich green dress of satiny material, with a tight skirt that ended at her calves. A simple green ribbon was wrapped around her middle and tied off with a neat bow. She wore thick, matching heels that made her look much taller than what she actually was. Her makeup, for once, was on the lighter side. Gabriella felt guilty thinking this, but she looked less like a tramp.

"H-Hey," Gabriella stuttered hesitantly, blinking her eyes furiously for a moment to ensure she was seeing properly.

She hadn't talked to Avery since. But she did know via Troy that she was doing much better. She was now more tolerable; her attitude had been tuned down, and now she was far friendlier. According to Troy, she was learning how to be less controlling, and was coping with her father's gruesome death by visiting a psychologist, which she had once refused to do. This was all thanks to Rick Pirelli, her new boyfriend. He was the star football player from West High, and honestly, they were perfect for each other. Even Gabriella could see it. As Troy had told her, they had met in line at the ice cream parlor downtown, and hadn't been able to take their eyes off of each other since. They had made sure that their colleges were within, at maximum, thirty minutes away from each other, for they could not bear to be apart. It had been good for Avery—very good in fact, and her wounds were gradually healing. Now, she only wished that Gabriella's injuries would mend. Avery knew what it was like to be in her awful position. To lose a parent, to have the other one go delirious, to lose track of everything that mattered—she knew what that was like. She also knew what falling in love was like, and she couldn't imagine having to be separated from Rick. Just thinking about it made her sick to her stomach, and to think that Troy and Gabriella were deeper in love than she and Rick were just made it worse. How was Gabriella going to cope? She did not want to know.

"Is this your first prom?" Avery smiled warmly, trying her best to be as welcoming as possible to the pitiable girl. She helped herself to some sugary punch, sipping it carefully in between her painted lips.

"Yeah," Gabriella managed to croak out, her eyes large. "It is." She gulped down some more punch during an uncomfortable pause. "You?"

"Well, I went to last year's," Avery replied calmly, an affable smile still imprinted on her face. "Are you enjoying yourself?"  
"Yes."

"That's good," Avery responded, somewhat nervous now in Gabriella's company. "Where's Troy?"

"Over there with his friends." Gabriella pointed her index finger behind her at the rowdy table in the far corner of the gym. Avery nodded. "Where's Rick?" Gabriella asked politely.

"He's in the bathroom," Avery laughed softly.

"Oh," Gabriella squeaked distantly, her big brown eyes far away. They eyed the wall on the opposite side of the gym.

"So how are you and Troy?" The strawberry blonde inquired uniformly, her freckled face disappearing in the red cup as she took a good long drink of the exceedingly sweet beverage.

"Fine," Gabriella choked out. "You know, the usual." Gabriella's eyes dropped down to the liquid in her cup. She felt heat slowly creep up her cheeks to her forehead, the vast gymnasium suddenly suffocating her at her lie. She hated lying.

"How are you feeling about college?" Avery asked bluntly, her voice maternally gentle. "About being separated from him?"

Gabriella shook her head erratically, tears pricking her giant eyes, making them burn. She sucked in a shaky breath and sighed. "I'm sorry, Avery, I just can't…I can't handle it." She was embarrassed, and quickly blinked back the tears, giving an unconvincing effort for a smile that look more like a pathetic grimace. Gabriella was surprised what Avery did next.

She drew her in for a warm hug.

"I'm sorry, hun," Avery sighed glumly into the top of Gabriella's silky hair, empathetic. "It's going to be hard."

"I know. I just….I just wish I could stop him. Now I realize that I should have…_fought _for our love instead of just let it pass by…" Gabriella shook her head frantically, frustrated with herself. Avery only held her tighter.

"There is still a chance, you know," Avery whispered mournfully, pulling away. She gazed deep into those profound, chocolate eyes, suddenly knowing why her ex-boyfriend was so crazily in love with this girl. "There is still a chance to turn it all around and be with him."

"What chance?" Gabriella sputtered helplessly. "It's all said and done." She felt as if her heart were in her butt.

"Just think about it, please," Avery whispered to her gently. "I want you and Troy to be happy, and you two don't seem happy with your current situation. If you really want something, then there's always away, okay? Just remember that." Avery gave her a hopeful yet lamenting smile before briskly striding away back to Rick, who had just strolled in through the door beside them.

Gabriella sighed sorrowfully and helped herself to another cup of the syrupy punch. She distractedly took a big swig and then promptly spit it back into her cup.

* * *

Troy felt that familiar itch of yearning to be with Gabriella, but he resisted the strong urge and tried to enjoy the little time left he had with his friends. But their questions quickly became too personal.

"So, how many times have you two done the deed?" Zeke asked with hungry, interested eyes, noisily slurping something from a cup. Troy was sure whatever he was guzzling down so rapidly was spiked.

"C'mon, Zeke," Troy sighed with flushing cheeks, curling his fingers rigidly around his own cup. "That's not important."

"Well sure it is," Jason disagreed with a disapproving chuckle, reclining lazily in his chair and wrinkling his black suit. "So, answer Zeke's question."

"It's not important," Troy declared more forcefully, feeling incredibly defensive. He could hear Gabriella's soft giggle in the back of his mind.

"Seriously, dude. I want to know," Zeke pried selfishly, bumping Troy on the shoulder with his fist to yank back his attention. "Jasmine and I have already done it like, t—"

"—No, I really don't want to know, Zeke," Troy interjected with disgust etched in his voice. "Unlike you."

"How many times, Captain?" Chad joined in, leaning forward on his elbow. "Why can't you just spill?"

"Yeah, you're so weirdly secretive about this," Reid Jeffries, another one of Troy's basketball teammates, agreed with a nod. "Why, have you guys like not done it yet?" Reid unleashed a ruthless chuckle. "Listen man, you've got about less than a month…"

"Why do I have to tell you? Why do you guys _care_?" Troy stammered irritably, almost angry. "Why does it _matter_?"

"Because that's what defines you as a _man_," Peter Kenilworth pressed on, prodding Troy in his other arm. "That's what makes you one."

"That's bull."

"No, it's not!" Reid wrestled. "I have already done Cynthia like ten times now!"

Troy's jaw dropped open and hit the floor. "You guys have been together for a week," he responded dryly.

"I know, dude! Isn't that fucking amazing? I mean, I fucking love this whore!"

Troy felt the heat coming on, and he wrung out the collar of his suit consciously. "Is that all she is?" Troy asked vaguely, his mind somewhere else.

"Well, what else are women for?"

"Why do you think that way?" Troy struggled to keep his husky voice level. "Why do you…why are you guys so _immature_?" His chest was moving up and down madly. Why was he "friends" with these shallow people again?

"Dude, _tell us_! What the hell is wrong with you, man? Just tell, us! HOW MANY TIMES?" Chad blurted out loudly, impatient.

"Why is it you're business?" He felt as if all five teammates were in his face, all at once.

"_Because_! Gabriella is a first-class lady…body-wise…and we want to know how good she is!"

"_Why_?" Troy boiled, fuming between gritted teeth, his fist clenching and managing not to sock the kid in his face. "So you can fuck her when I'm gone?"

"N-No," Zeke scrambled sloppily, his face churning red.

"You guys are fucking idiots," the basketball captain promised irately under his breath. How dare they.

"You need to tell us to be a MAN!" Peter yelled out.

"That's bullshit," Troy swore lividly. He was at his limit now. He had been shoved to the top. He was furious now, upset, seething, his chest hysterically moving as he sucked in a breath. "Fucking bullshit. Whoever fucking made up that fucking rule should be fucking stabbed in the stomach until they fucking perish!"

Jason shrunk in his seat, purposefully obscuring himself in the darkness of the room.

"Oh ho!" Reid and Zeke hollered out piercingly in unison, pointing a finger at Troy, who wanted more than anything to disappear. "So it's true! You _haven't _fucking had sex!"

"It doesn't matter!" Troy pledged desperately, but he knew it was no use.

"It _does _matter!"

"YOU GUYS ARE FUCKING MORONS!" Troy bulleted up to a stand, his face crimson in anger and irritation. "YOU…YOU _DICKHEADS_!" He couldn't think of anything else to say.

Troy violently stormed out of the gymnasium angrier than he had ever felt in his life. He was huffing hard, panting, suddenly a fire-breathing dragon. He didn't know what to say. He didn't know what to with his hands. With his feet, his legs, his mouth. He just wanted to run away. He felt this restlessness, this exasperation inside him, this type of indescribable, intolerable vexation inside him, twisting every which way. He unbuttoned his shirt as he briskly lurched away, mind spinning, his throbbing legs hauling the rest of him somewhere. Where, he did not know. He wrenched his tie loose and flung it over his shoulder, tempted to chuck his coat to the floor. But he didn't. He kept going, kept tumbling through the haunting halls of East High, until he made it to the back door. It didn't even register in his brain what he was doing, he just shoved open the heavy door leading outside, and was met with the rain.

The rain.

Something inside of him sank.

The showers came roaring down heedlessly, in thick gray sheets that were nearly impossible to see through. All that was heard were the deafening cackles of thunder and the shatterof the rain as it shot down from the sky, pattering against the soggy grass. The ground was flooded with water, the dirt mixing with it and creating mud, dirtying Troy's shoes. Water pooled in his shoes, drenching his clothes, but he did not care. He merely stood there, dazed. The merciless rain drummed against his back, piercing his skin sharply, and Troy hunched into a tight ball to shield himself. He wanted to scream until he couldn't hear the rain anymore. He wanted to scream until he could just disappear. He wanted to scream until he was guaranteed that he and Gabriella would be together through college. He wanted to scream until everything was perfect between them. He wanted to scream until he knew that everything was going to be okay.

But he didn't scream.

He took thin, frantic breaths until he managed to calm down.

He glanced up.

He could just distinguish a blurry, emaciated form against a far wall to his right, limply recoiled against the wet brick. There was the glistening, silvery blue skirt around the petite figure, hopelessly deflated.

Troy's hearted deteriorated to nothing at the sight. He recomposed himself in a sheer second, tentatively walking over to the poor girl and standing behind her. She did not notice his presence. Because of the brutal rain, Troy couldn't hear what she was saying, but she was talking desperately into her cell phone. He could just catch some words.

"Yes…no, I know…I know…I'm aware, miss…okay…I know, I'm fine with that. Really, I am…"

That was about the most he could decipher before she finally snapped the phone shut some tense moments, slipping into her clutch absentmindedly.

It was then when she began to cry.

Troy had not seen Gabriella since that day. It jerked at what was left at his heart, and he just wanted to collapse at his knees and hug her for all that she was worth.

But he didn't collapse at his knees.

He just stood there, watching while his girlfriend softly cried to herself, soaking in the gnashing rain.

Gabriella was supposed to feel happy at what she had just done. So why did her heart ache as badly as it did? She looked so fragile between the solid panes of rain, her gaunt arms trembling in the sudden cold, her damp hair matted down. Troy was scared to even touch her glasslike self, yet it was not long before Troy couldn't retain himself any longer.

"Gabriella," he spoke.

Gabriella began to sob harder and Troy weakly dropped to his knees, engulfing her in his arms and falling back against the water and grass with her clutched tightly in his arms like a prize.

"Take me away, Troy," Gabriella whimpered feebly into his neck. "I don't want to be here." She clawed at his back in urgency.

Troy nodded, bundling her sodden body in his sturdy arms and carrying her to his truck. As it was roofless, the aged, shredded leather seats were beaded with drops from the stormy sky, the grimy carpet that layered the floor completely saturated with rainwater. She lay sprawled in the seat beside him, tears staining her saintly face among the raindrops, dripping down her angelic features. He didn't think twice, rumbling the vehicle out of the parking lot in an instant.

"You know where to take me," Troy just barely heard his girlfriend groggily murmur in between the crashing rain.

Troy nodded, steering one-handedly as he alertly peered through the heavy downpour. Gabriella was mostly silent for the whole ride there. So quiet and so still that Troy believed she had drifted off to a slumber. But that belief was trampled when he heard her whisper in a small, fearful voice.

"Troy?"

"Yeah, Gabi?"

"I don't want to have our own party anymore. I don't want to party."

It were as if she were saying she did not want to be happy.


End file.
